Stranger to Blue Waters
by Avdal
Summary: What's the difference between chance and fate? Is there one? Rey has spent the last six months on the run. Six months of always looking over her shoulder and worrying about every strange face that crosses her path. She'd thought she could lose herself in the desert. Go some place where no one would ever find her. And then she saw him. The Man in Black.
1. NM Highway 82 West

**Stranger to Blue Waters**

 **Chapter 1: Highway 82 West**

Some days Rey felt like the whole world was on fire.

The southwestern sun in July was _unreal_. It burnt more than it bronzed, and every cracked patch on the road leaking tar told the story of exactly what this desert could put something through.

Sprawling hills, dust, and baked earth. Distances were long out here, and Rey was all alone. Put all together, it was perfect.

The Land of Enchantment. She had taken a picture of the sign at the border between it and west Texas. As soon as she had seen the faded piece of metal, decorated with a faded chilli pepper and a constellation of bullet holes, Rey knew that she'd fallen in love.

It was there, in southern New Mexico on a straight as a arrow stretch of Highway 82 West between the town of Artesia and the sleepy ski resort of Cloudcroft, that she had first seen _him._ The Man in Black.

He was a stranger, strange in more ways than one, and he was all by himself in a place that could very well have been under the dictionary for 'middle of nowhere'. He was incredible tall, dressed in head to toe black, and his thumb was in the air.

What in the gods was a hitchhiker doing out here? There hadn't been a village, or small town as she'd been told that 'America doesn't have villages', for… for five hours? Six? Rey hadn't seen a single other car since early morning. Not even any houses, at least not that she could tell.

The Stranger was leaning against a tall rocky spire, cowering in the small patch of shade it cast and scowling at her like he was daring her not to stop for him and see what he needed. Creepy looking guy. He was either in trouble or he _was_ trouble. Rey had slowed down when she first saw him, wondering if he was nothing more than a sun induced mirage reflecting against all the heat off the blacktop. He almost looked exactly like that. A flickering dark shape that was just so out of place here that he couldn't possibly be real.

When Rey drives close enough that she can see him, he's younger than he'd looked like from a distance. He steps out of his shade and closer to the road, standing right next to the white line and waiting for her.

Oh. Kriff. Rey had been slowing down without realizing it. She hadn't meant to lead him on and think that she was actually pulling over for him, because she wasn't. Single women don't pick up hitchhikers. Everyone knows that. Especially single women on the run picking up ridiculously tall, young male hitchhikers. Dressed all in black. In the heat of the New Mexican desert. Out in the middle of nowhere.

No. Sorry buddy, can't do it.

Rey makes a pained expression and waves an apology to him as she swerves into the other lane and speeds up. That was pretty crummy of her. She shouldn't have slowed down like that and gotten his hopes up.

The Stranger watches her, looking pissed but she can't really blame him. When she passes, she can't bring herself to look him in the eyes.

In her rear view mirror she can see him step out into the middle of the road and watch her. No one else around as far as the eye can see, and he simply stands there as they both get smaller on each other's horizons.

* * *

Rey tries not to think about him again.

What if he'd needed help? She could have at least asked him if he did. Told him that she would call someone for help. Police of highway patrol maybe, but that could have brought with it it's own set of problems.

Rey had left England six months ago. Her visa had expired in three. When she'd left home her friends had supported her. Told her to go out and see the world. Didn't take them too long to change their mind and start blowing up her phone, begging her to come to her senses before she gets any deeper in trouble.

As much as she was smitten by the landscape, her journey of self discovery hadn't been easy. Her car, a piece of crap junker she'd barely paid a thousand dollars for, kept breaking down, making her feel even more like a target. Every time a police car drove by her blood ran cold. So far they had just stopped her to see if she needed help. Only one of them had asked for her ID and then found her British driver's license to be 'a hell of a thing', whatever that means.

Someday her luck would run out, Rey was sure of it. That's what had brought her here, on the loneliest stretch of road she could find. A day's drive in either direction from any major towns, or longer if her car keeps overheating.

As Rey drives, she finds herself unable to _not_ think about that strange, strange man. He couldn't have needed help, right? He couldn't. If he did, wouldn't he have tried to wave her down or something like that? He was acting like a hitchhiker, not someone who was in trouble and needed a good Samaritan.

The engine warning chimes again, warning her that it's going to start overheating soon. Rey pulls over, giving it time to cool and her mind time to think.

She could have given him some water at least. It's 113 degrees for kriff's sake. He could literally die out here if nobody else comes along and gives him a lift.

It hasn't been too far, five miles back maybe. She's got plenty of water. That morning, in fact, she'd gotten stocked up on supplies. Gone to an oddball little convenience store attached to a gas station and bought a whole 24-pack of water bottles. Plus some gossip mags and junk food and cheap tequila. The essentials.

She has plenty. She could share. Give some water, save a life. Then maybe her conscience would shut up about this whole thing.

That's it, then. Mind's made up. Rey unlocks her seatbelt and twists halfway into the back seat to go through the shopping bags there. She pulls out two bottles of water and a little sack of fruit and nut mix. She dumps them into a grocery bag, ties it into a bow, ands sets it on the passenger seat next to her.

Then she strums her fingers against the steering wheel and debates if she should really turn around or not. It could be dangerous. The Stranger could be angry that she didn't stop for him before.

But it's also hotter than hot. She's been sitting here long enough that the engine has cooled back into the safe zone, so it's time for her to make a decision.

She should do the right thing. Rey _always_ tries to do the right thing, even if sometimes she doesn't exactly manage to. But gods know that she could use some good karma right now to keep her wheels rolling on the road and her butt out of a detention cell.

That's the thought that settles it for her. Sticks to her sense of morality until she has no choice but to turn around and head back to help a Stranger in need.

Except he's not there when she returns.

She had locked the doors when she'd approached that rock spire. Her plan had been to hand him his survival kit though a half opened window and ask him if he needs her to flag someone down and get him some help. At no point was he going to go to Cloudcroft with her, but she could try to do a little more for him.

All she finds is an empty gravel pull off next to the rock. No Man in Black. Nobody had passed by from the other direction, either.

Confused, Rey pulls over onto the shoulder of the road. In those few short minutes that she had been gone the sun had shifted and now the small amount of shade that here had disappeared.

Maybe he was nearby then? Hiding out from the formidable heat under the shadow of a tree, someplace close where he could still see the road? It's possible, except here it's nothing but short junipers and sagebrush. She would see him, Mr. All Black, sticking out like a sore thumb from this burnt sand-colored landscape.

Rey waits a few minutes, letting her car idle and the engine temperature drop back into the middle of the dial. Just for good measure, so she can sleep soundly that night far from here and really tell herself she did all she could, Rey honks a few times. If he's anywhere, he'd hear her.

Five minutes go by.

Nothing. Maybe there were houses out here after all and she just didn't know about them.

Rey gets out of her car and stretches, feeling how even being in the open for just a few seconds is enough to make her skin start to feel uncomfortable. She walks over to where she had seen him. There are footprints in the gravel, heading off away from the road toward a low, silty hill.

Okay, if Rey was a really, _really_ good person, she'd follow them. Make sure he didn't wander off into the desert in a heat-induced dazed and collapse or something like that.

Rey's not that good of a person. The Stranger was creepy as all hell and she was alone out here. Not a good combination. If she sees a forest ranger or benevolent looking highway patrolman, she'll tell them. That's the best she can offer.

Disquieted but out of acceptable options, Rey gets back in her car and pulls away slowly, heading back on her day's goal of reaching Cloudcroft. As she drives, she scans both near and far on either side of the road. All she can see is brush and junipers and hills rolling on and on for miles.

That rock spire gets smaller in the mirror again. For a second she thinks she can see that dark shape on the horizon and she slams on the breaks,. The shape flickers and melts into the road. This time it really was a mirage.

* * *

Another hour and a 2,000ft climb in elevation and the air was still burningly hot and her engine was about to fry itself. It was getting worse, making a knocking sound like it had a gas tank full of water and she has to pull over all the time now to cool it.

This means she has to do the unthinkable and turn off the air conditioning. How inhumane. This desert here is just ludicrous. There's no other place quite like it.

Another miserable hour passes before she reaches a plateau. She's high enough now that there are pine trees and her dashboard tells her its 78 degrees even though it feels much hotter. Here the road splits to the right and left. There's a bigger town called Ruidoso about 40 miles to the north if she picks right, but at the rate her beater car is stalling Rey isn't sure she can make it there before nightfall. That leaves her with the faded sign telling her Cloudcroft is now just six miles away.

Left it is, and then she sees him again.

There he is, the Stranger in Black, his thumb in the air just like before. Same man, same pose, different location and somehow he ended up in front of her even though she'd left him behind literally in her dust.

Despite knowing better and already having this conversation with herself, Rey starts to slow down. She still feels guilty about blowing him off back there and now she's oddly compelled to stop for him and offer her help.

She double then triple checks that her doors are locked before she pulls to a stop in front of him and rolls down the passenger side window a crack.

"Hey?" she calls out lamely.

It's a dumb thing to say. An immature thing, but Rey's got nothing else. She could have gone with hello or something less juvenile, probably.

The Stranger stares at her for a few moments. He pushes away from the pine tree he had been leaning against and walks a bit closer. He looks tired and Rey can see a faint scar running down one side of his face. It makes her feel bad for him. Looking a crazy mess like that must have made getting a ride out ere even harder.

"Hello."

His voice is deep and flat in tone.

"I saw you earlier," she tells him. "Like two hours back. I'm sorry I didn't stop for you then."

A long moment of increasingly awkward silence passes as he stares her down. Rey starts to squirm uncomfortably in her seat. Maybe this was a bad idea after all…

"Why didn't you? He finally asks.

"Um..." She probably should lie. Definitely should lie.

"I was having car problems. I didn't want to pick you up only for us to break down in a few minutes."

It's a half truth. Those are the best kind of lies.

The man frowns, then nods and Rey hopes he buys her bullshit.

"We saw you pulled over. I asked him to stop but he didn't want to."

The man tosses his black jacket over his shoulder and looks up the road. He doesn't seem quite as scary now that she's seeing him up close. He still kind of is, but not as much as when she'd first laid eyes on him earlier that afternoon.

"We?" she asks.

He's alone. There's no 'we', is there?

"The guy who gave me a lift here," he explains. "We saw your car pulled over back there and you looked like you were taking a nap. He didn't want to stop and bother you."

Oh. Well, Rey _had_ taken a brief catnap during one of her many engine cooling breaks. It must have been only for a minute or so, but it explains how he could beat her up here.

"So her just dropped you off here? He didn't take you into a town or anything?"

The Stranger shrugs.

"He was going north." The man gestures over his should to the side road to Ruidoso. "I'm heading west. Same direction that you are."

He leaves the words hanging in the air. Rey fidgets with the steering wheel, torn between a selfish act and a profoundly bad idea. It's _only_ six miles to Cloudcroft. Not that she expects Cloudcroft to be much of a town, but since they're both heading there…

"Do you know this area at all?" she asks, eyeing him skeptically.

He shrugs again and sticks his hands in his pockets, a hunch to his shoulders that wasn't there before.

"I need a mechanic," she explains. "Do you know if there's any around here in the next town?"

"Yeah," he says after a moment. "At least there was one the last time I was up here. It's been a few years and the pale was off the main street. You'd have a lot of trouble finding it if you don't know where to look."

And the Stranger's subtle, too. But Rey's GPS hadn't listed any auto-shops anywhere nearby.

She sighs and bites the bullet. Bad idea, here we come.

"Would you like a ride into town?" she finally offers. "I won't be able to take you any further than Cloudcroft but-"

"That's fine," he says quickly, cutting her off. "I mean, _thank you_ , that will be fine."

He hunches over slightly more as he says it, like he's deliberately trying to make himself look smaller and less imposing.

"Maybe you can find someone to give you a lift from there?"

He nods and pulls on the passenger door handle. It snaps and doesn't open. He almost looks offended for a second but quickly hides it.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot." Rey presses the unlock button on the drivers door.

Her stranger turned passenger gives her an odd expression as he gets in. The man is so tall that he has to slouch so his head doesn't brush against the roof.

As they drive he stays very quiet and spends most of the time looking at his shoes. His silence makes Rey even more uncomfortable so she fills it with mindless chatter of her own. Rattles off what she thinks is wrong with the car's engine. All the ways she could fix it herself if she only had the right tools but, of course, she didn't take them with her from back home so now she has to waste her money getting someone else to fix it for her.

The Stranger perks up after a while and starts asking her a few questions. He's curious about her accent and what she's doing way out here by herself. He agrees with her on the middle of nowhere part. Neither of them ask each other's names.

They have to stop again just outside Cloudcroft to cool the engine. He asks if he can have a drink of water and she gives him one of the bottles in the grocery bag by his feet. He doesn't seem so bad now that she's gotten to know him for a few minutes. In fact, she feels kind of sorry for him. It can't be an easy thing to be hitchhiking out here through the desert when you look like he does, no one is ever going to want to stop.

When they make it to town the Stranger directs her to a garage three blocks off from the main street and behind a Family Dollar. She lets him keep both bottles of water and the snack mix "for the road". Then they go their separate ways with a polite thanks and wave goodbye.

* * *

No one was in the garage when she knocked at the front office.

Rey eventually asks at the store across the street and a highly disinterested teenager says that's her dad's shop and she calls him up for her.

While she waits, she has a good look around. Cloudcroft is high up, over 8,000 feet in elevation, and it's actually approaching being a pleasant temperature as the afternoon becomes evening. Tall, wide pine trees edge the streets and the buildings have a weathered but charming quality to them. Apparently this place is semi-popular in the winter for skiing, though come summer time it's just the locals and not many of those either.

When the mechanic comes, Rey is pretty sure he's half drunk. He's a middle aged man who's friendly enough, though he slurs his words slightly as he looks at the engine.

"This is going to be a big job, miss. You're going to have to come back tomorrow."

Here's the thing about the New Mexican accent: there isn't really one. Unless you're speaking Spanish. Or maybe the distinction between local dialects are just lost on a foreigner like Rey. Regardless, tomorrow is going to be a problem for her.

"Do you think I can make it down to Alamogordo like this?" she asks him.

They're standing in his driveway and she's clinging to the edges of the shade. Despite the thinner, cooler air, Rey can still feel the beginnings of a sunburn start to form on any exposed parts of her skin.

The mechanic pushes away, wiping his hands off on his faded jeans. She kind of likes him, even though he's drunk in the afternoon. He doesn't talk too much and doesn't ask questions. A man who doesn't ask questions can be forgiven for a lot.

"Doubt it," he says, fiddling with one of the hoses. Rey cranes her neck to see what he's doing. "You said the heatings been getting worse?"

Rey nods, feeling her hopes of getting out of here soon start to drop. "Very quickly. Much worse since this morning."

"Then I wouldn't risk it. Alamo's all the way down in the basin. You've got to get off these mountains first and it gets real steep in places. Takes me a few hours, for you'd it'd probably be all day."

"If I even make it there."

"If you even make it there."

Rey sighs. She starts to explain her financial issues to him. Tells him that she can't exactly _pay_ him for fixing her car, but she's really handy with a wrench herself. Maybe she can help him out around here in exchange?

The man laughs, but he nods. They shake on an agreement that she'll come by tomorrow. Help him out with some odd jobs and work he's got lined up, and he'll do what he can for her car. Maybe give her a few hundred more miles on it, but that engine's days are numbered.

Rey's heart falls at the news. She's going to have to figure something out, but first things first.

Before she leaves, he tells her about an affordable hotel nearby. Rey smiles and thanks him, pretending to drive off in the direction he had pointed her to. Then she circles back and heads out towards the national forest on the south side of town. These have been her lifeline during her whole trip. Free public camping and without them she'd have spent the last six months sleeping in her car.

Tomorrow then. Now she just needs to find a quiet little place to spend the night.

* * *

Rey meets him again that evening.

It happens outside of the town on a narrow and weathered stretch of road to a place called 'Sunspot' and this time Rey's not happy about it.

She had stopped at the local Ranger Station to get some water. The main office was closed, but they had a blue faucet on the side of the building and she stuck the big 20 gallon water cooler she'd 'obtained' from a Walmart a few weeks back under it and started to fill it up. Then she went to the little information booth and picked up some maps of the area. GPS reception was spotty out here, and she was curious about this very odd observatory she'd been seeing signs for.

By the time she gets back to her car, the Stranger in Black is standing next to it.

Rey freezes mid step, dropping on her maps on the sidewalk. He turns to her and she doesn't pick it up, a sudden sense of fear dawning over her.

"I'm not following you," he says, breaking the silence, "if that's what you're wondering."

That does nothing to convince her. This is starting to go beyond the realm of mere coincidence.

He steps away from her car and her shoulders tighten as he moves sideways, neither closer or further away from her. It takes Rey a moment to find her voice.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were heading west and were going to get another ride out of town."

He looks down at the ground and sticks his hands in his pockets.

"We _are_ out of town."

"Not to the west. What happened to getting a ride?"

Rey grips the water cooler tight. It's not much of a weapon, but it's all she's got on hand. Literally, unless the Stranger is allergic to papercuts.

"Tried to," he says with a shrug. "No one was around anywhere. You're the only one I've seen driving out of town."

That's right. No one was around here. They were alone out in this parking lot together.

"This isn't even the main road out. This goes to some observatory and dead ends."

Rey doesn't want to sound like she accusing him of something, but she kind of is. She's just not sure what, exactly.

He clears his throat, hunching his shoulders down.

"I was going to sleep out tonight. I heard there was a motel in town but I can't afford it so… yeah, I was just going to sleep out."

Rey looks him over quickly. He doesn't have a single piece of luggage with him, just his hoodie and a light jacket.

"Where's your tent?" she asks. "I think it's going to get pretty cold tonight."

He nods then swallows.

"Yeah, it always does in the desert. The low levels of humidity cause big drops in temperature after the sun goes down."

Well thanks for that Mr. Wikipedia. Rey takes a step forward, hoping he moves further away.

"You didn't get your car fixed?" he asks, staying rooted to the spot.

Rey frowns.

"Not yet. The place was closed. I have to come back tomorrow."

"Oh. Okay."

The silence comes back. Rey sets her face into an intentional scowl, hoping the Stranger in Black takes the hint. He doesn't.

"I need to get going," she tells him cooly. "Good luck with sleeping out tonight, but I need to be on my way now."

She takes a few steps closer to her car, he stays right where he is, standing forlornly next to the rear door. When she gets to him he still doesn't move, and she throws the driver's door open to get in. He stops her with a light hand to her shoulder.

There's nothing threatening at all about the gesture, at least not beyond the context of the circumstances. Still, Rey's arm jumps under his touch and she has to fight the impulse to recoil. The creepy man just _touched_ her. He shouldn't' have done that. That's too far.

Rey's heart begins to race as she struggles to voice her objection, but suddenly she's having a very hard time thinking clearly. It's like her mind is trapped in a cloud, the space between it and her voice moving further and further apart.

"Hey?" the man says, repeating the first word she ever said to him. "Thanks for giving me a lift into town."

Rey wants to curtly say 'you're welcome' and get in. Drive off and find the best hidden, furthest away little cubby hole in the woods where she can set up her tent.

The man touches her shoulder again. Holds it firmly under his palm as he steers her to face him. He takes the heavy water jug from her hands, never breaking the eye contact between them.

"Why don't you take me with you," he says, his voice having a very strange, hollow ring to it.

It's not a question. Rey's head feels so muggy, like she's having an out of body experience. His suggestion however, actually seems like a good idea. A perfectly normal idea. Maybe she should do exactly that?

"Why don't you come with me?" she asks, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

"Thank you," he answers. "We can find a place in the woods and camp tonight."

That's an even better idea.

"We can camp together. I have a tent. You'll be really cold in the woods if you don't have one."

The Stranger nods. Rey waits, a loud buzzing ringing in her head.

"I can sleep in the car," he says. "You can have the tent. You _won't_ feel uncomfortable if I do that."

Rey nods. Sure sure.

"You can sleep in my car, if that would make you feel more comfortable?"

Everything makes perfect sense. They can help each other out. The way good people do good things. Logical.

Rey holds her breath as she waits, hoping that the Stranger takes her up on her offer.

"Okay," he finally says, letting go of her shoulder.

Immediately Rey feels dizzy, so lightheaded that she has to lean against the door frame. She must have… not eaten enough today or something. Maybe all the heat and sun got to her after all.

The Stranger walks around her car and gets in the passenger's seat. Rey stares at him, blinking dumbly.

"Let's get going," he tells her, closing his door. "We need to find a campsite before it gets too dark.

Robotically Rey sits down in the driver's seat and draws the seatbelt across her chest, locking it into place like she's done a hundred times before. She puts her hands on the wheel at ten and two, shaking her head to try and clear the fog from it enough that she can drive safely.

"Are you ready to go?" she asks, turning the key in the ignition.

The stranger smiles at her. It makes his scar crinkle. He nods and she puts the car into reverse, slowly easing out of the empty parking lot and driving off down the road as night begins to fall.

* * *

Author's note:

Yup yup, as promised I've finally put up Skies 2.0! The original version, now known simply as 'Skies', is still a available on my profile on this site. You're all welcome to check it out if you'd like, but be aware that my writing wasn't the best back then and there might/will be spoilers for this story. Not too many, though. Pretty much everything after ch7 or so of Skies will be totally different than what happens here.

This story I'm also doing as part of a trilogy (or trilogy within a trilogy, perhaps). To avoid some of the burnout I faced with writing a story as long as No Rest for the Wicked, I'm keeping this first part of the trilogy in 3 burst writings of 12 chapters, with each coming in at an estimated 50-60k in total. Then I'll take some time off to recharge and then do another 12 chapters of fic 2 in the series then another break then another 12 etc etc.

Anyhow, I hope you all liked this first chapter! Chapter 2 will be up in early June (I'm taking a vacation until then) so please check it out then and I'll try to have regular updates!

thanks for reading and, if you want to chat, you can drop me a line on tumblr at ava-dalo :)

For fun, I've decided to chart Rey's journey through the southwest by marking it on a map and updating it as she goes. Right now I'm going to stick it on tumblr since I don't have any other place (wordpress maybe later).

Unfortunately for my readers here on fanfiction dot net, I can't directly link to it. That's just… dumb. I can't even link directly to THIS site because it just shows up as

-and yes, that was where the link was!

I wish I could, but the best I can do is tell you how to find it on tumblr

find my profile ava-dalo

go to ava-dalo slash post slash 174235203963

Bless you fanfiction dot net, we're doing it oldschool style here!


	2. Assuming Leading to Assumptions

chapter summary:

Where Rey wakes up with a giant 'WTF' thought bubble above her head, Kylo tries to choke down her cooking, and our stories villain shows up to the party early.

* * *

That night Rey dreams that someone is watching her sleep.

She can't see him directly. All that she can tell is that he's thin and old and hunched. A faceless shadow peering over her when she's at her most vulnerable. Even if she has no reason to fear him, everything about him feels very, very wrong.

Then her eyes open to the first light of dawn. She's in her tent, starting up at the dark grey panel of its ceiling and she's alone. It was just a dream. Just the wind in the trees.

The pale light from outside gives her tent an eerie, other worldly glow and for several minutes she simply stares up, watching the patterns of shows cast by branches change above her head.

Years ago, when she was still a child, she'd had that nightmare before. It had been so long ago. She hadn't thought about it, about that horrible dark presence, for so long, Why now? Now when it had been another day on the road, with nothing at all out of place or-

 _Him_.

There had been a man. Rey frowns, sitting upright and struggling with the tension of her sleeping bag. Yes, there had been a man all in black, but not the ghostly presence in her dream. This had been some strange, creepy guy hitchhiking by the road and…

And…

And what?

It's the strangest thing, but Rey can't remember what happened yesterday evening. It's like the second half of the day is blanketed, covered and hidden from her memory. A total gap space where memories should be.

For a second, Rey thinks she can hear footsteps outside. Crunch crunch crunch of gravel. She freezes mid-unzip, her muscles tightening and her ears straining for every hint of a sound.

Then the sound fades, or maybe it had never even existed outside of her head, and silence fills the air. Not even the wind. It's dead quiet.

A little piece of her memory comes back at that. She'd given the man in black a lift into town. Cloudcroft. That's right. He said he'd known the area.

Then… well, then she must have found some place to make camp for the night. Apparently. Did she get totally trashed or something? Why can't she seem to remember anything?

And where is 'here'? Where is she right now?

Rey kicks her way free of her bedding, grabbing the oversized sweatshirt that she uses as a pillow. When she steps outside the sky is still pinking around the edges and a deeper slate coolness in the center. She starts to shiver immediately, the snap of crisp, cool mountain air doing as much to revive her out of her sluggishness as a sharply welcome hit of caffeine would. Along with it comes more memories. More fragments highlighting in the gaps of her recollection.

Something is off. She can't remember exactly where she is. Hells, she can't even remember setting up her tent _at all_.

There are footprints all around her. A boot print far too big to belong to any of her shoes. It makes her pause, a feel of deep discontent starting to fill her.

The Stranger had been here with her then? She faintly remembers him being there, but it's a ghost of a reflection of a memory. He had ambushed her by the Ranger's station, showing up straight out from nowhere like a shadow. He had told her they would camp out together. Rey can't remember what her answer had been, but in no way would she have ever agreed to this with a stranger. Especially such a strange-stranger.

Rey also remembers suddenly not feeling well. Maybe she had lied about it, because she had wanted to get away from him. He'd seemed very sad and it had been night and he had been talking to her. He had said… she doesn't know what he said.

So where is he now? If it wasn't for the footprints, Rey could almost pretend he had been a figment of her imagination. Perhaps another part of her dream.

Cautiously, she starts to approach her car. _Her_ car. Her little haven away from the cruel world that had spent these last six months trying to reach out and get her.

She squints against the reflection of early morning brightness and pine boughs. The car is empty, both front and back. The passenger seat is in full recline and a large black hoodie is spread out over it like… like he was using it for a blanket last night.

So he slept here, that was real, and now he's gone and left his shirt behind. Karking hell, what is she supposed to make of that now?

Rey spins in a quick circle, her eyes scanning every shadow and shape and her ears straining to her anything beyond the sound of her own rapid breathing in the cool mountain air.

Wherever the kriff the Stranger is, he's not here now. That's all that matters.

She immediately springs into action, her mind moving as fast on numb autopilot as it can. Rey races back to her tent and yanks the poles out of their lower loops, collapsing it in on itself with her sleeping bag and everything else inside it all in one. Then she scoops it together, creating an awkward and saggy bundle that drags across the pine needle strewn ground as she runs with it back to her car, nearly tripping over the multitude of dangling ties and lines as she goes.

Into the back seat it gets flung, then she's behind the steering wheel only a second later. Her keys are still in the ignition, she really must have been totally out of it last night when she pulled in, but that remains an absolute numb spot in her mind that she doesn't have time to poke at right now.

Now only one thing matters.

Engine on. Foot on the gas. Gear in reverse.

* * *

Rey almost screamed when she saw him.

She hadn't gotten far, probably less than half a mile. Despite her frantic attempts at fleeing, Rey had to keep slow to avoid the alarming number of rocks, debris, and potholes that were strewn along this extremely nearly unpassable mountain road she was on. How she managed this last night when she was apparently out of her mind was completely beyond her.

And then he was there, a tall Man in Black wearing torn black jeans and a baggy black T shirt. Exactly matching the color story of the hoodie still lurking in the corner of Rey's vision.

He's walking along the road back towards where she had been parked. When he sees her, he stops and stares bug-eyed. Where in the kark-

Doesn't matter. Rey isn't going to stop for him. Not again.

No, this time she speeds up. Presses down on the gas even if it makes her plow into and out of a particularly deep pothole so hard she grounds the bottom of her car and it makes a teeth-grating sound on the rocky surface before keeping on.

Then the man raises his hand and Rey raises her foot. Then it slams itself down… onto the brake.

Rey hadn't been wearing her seatbelt. Her torso collides powerfully against the steering wheel, all the air being knocked out of her lungs with the unexpected impact as her car inexplicably slams to a hard stop. For a second Rey is dazed, all she can hear is the ringing in her ears.

No. Not in her ears. She squeezing the horn down with her boobs, for kriff's sake.

Rey coughs and pushes herself back weakly and blinks down at her right hand. It's on the gear shift and she's in park.

She didn't do that. Any of this.

When she looks up, the Stranger isn't there on the road in front of her anymore, because he's standing right next to her car. He opens up the passenger door and leans in, and every part of Rey wants to scream and run as far and fast as her legs can take her.

"Something wrong?" he asks dryly, opening the passenger door a crack. Watching as she rubs the soon-to-be bruise on her sternum.

"Get out."

It's rude and stupid and Rey blurts it out and says it without meaning to.

The Stranger actually looks offended for a moment, but then he does exactly the opposite. He gets in her car, giving both her and the wad of her tent a poignant look. He reaches across from her, drawing her seatbelt around her and only when it clicks closed does Rey suddenly slump forward like she had been held up by invisible string.

She blinks, her mind swirling uselessly.

"Were you just trying to ditch me?" he asks.

Rey flinches from more than his peeved tone. On one hand, she owes this weirdo man in black nothing. On the other, gods only know where they are. There could be a town in a ten minute walk around the curve or it could be fifty miles before another person happens to come along.

"I'm sorry," she says out of reflex.

"Um… here you go." She tries to hand him his hoodie which was bundled up in a wad between the seats but he simply stares at it in her hand until she lets go and it drops on his lap.

"You _were_ trying to run away then?" he asks. "Why? What did I do?"

Rey flicks her gaze from the rear view mirror to the side to the road in front of them. No one is anywhere. Just dirt and pines.

Time to lie.

"I thought maybe you'd taken off. Like..."

Like what? It's a stupid explanation and clearly he doesn't buy it.

 _So you were just going to leave me out here?_

Rey can almost hear him say the words, even if his mouth doesn't move. His expression, annoyed and also somewhat insulted, conveys his thoughts so clearly he might as well have projected them into her head.

Her hands fiddle with the cover to her steering wheel as an uncomfortable silence begins to stretch between them. She should say something. The Stranger is staying quiet, now looking resolutely at his shoes or outside or anywhere in the car except at her.

He seems like a regular guy now. Sort of. Big and odd as all hell, but also kind of shy and awkward. It starts to make Rey feel a little bad for him. Maybe she had been wrong to jump to conclusions, but some things just aren't fitting together right.

"Do you need to go back?" she asks, her hand hovering over the key in the ignition.

He looks up then and, for a fraction of a moment, Rey can't help but think he looks rather a little adorable. So out of place in the great wide unknown.

"No. I don't have anything with me. Other than that."

He picks up his hoodie and sort of folds it. No luggage. Not even a duffel bag. What sort of hitchhiker doesn't even carry a backpack and water with them?

Rey turns the engine on and starts to drive. Probably better not to ask too many questions. The answers don't really matter anyhow and Rey's got plenty she'd rather keep herself as well.

"Do you know where we are?" she asks. "I can't remember from last night."

The man shrugs.

"Some national forest road. It was dark by the time we got here."

Right. Rey half remembers that. Or maybe less than half, but now she's starting to recall little things. Last night they had been driving for what felt like a while. The Stranger had kept asking if she was feeling okay. Rey can't remember how she had answered.

"Was I acting strange last night? I had the weirdest dream but I don't remember much of how we got here."

The man looks up at her then, having before gone back to staring glumly out the window and occasionally having to grip the bar over the door when they go over a particularly bad bump.

"I don't know," is all he answers.

They are further along this dirt road than Rey had originally thought. Not that she could remember much about last night. When Rey had done a quick mental scan of herself she didn't feel… well, she feels fine now. Confused, but fine. Yesterday had been another story, though.

"I went for a walk," he finally says.

Rey blinks. "Sorry?"

"This morning. I went for a walk because I wanted to see the dawn. I've always liked dawn in the mountains. That's why I was walking here by the road."

Well, Rey hadn't actually asked. Not when there were far greater concerns on her mind. But, in all fairness, that is approaching a reasonable thing for a person to do. GO to the mountains. Take a walk. See the sunrise.

Yeah. Normal stuff, more or less, and it makes her feel even worse about trying to ditch him in the middle of the wild.

Okay. _Okay_. She'll give him a ride to the main road. Wherever that is. _Maybe_ into town. Someplace where he can go about his way. But that's it. End of the line, buddy.

When the awkward silence becomes too much to bear, Rey flicks on the radio. Static and occasional beats are a better backdrop than anything her half-cocked moral sense and fully troubled mind could come up with to pass the time.

* * *

The Stranger likes Motown.

She had assumed he'd like his music _darker_. Like black metal. Or Black Sabbath. Or something to match his head to toe attire and general scowly nature.

But he had surprised her- no, _astonished_ her- by choosing the smooth beats of Eddie Floyd. Rey had started to think that she might be the only person in the world under fifty who liked _Knock on Wood_.

"My mom used to play this song all the time. Good memories."

Rey can't help but feel a pinch of jealousy bloom to his words. Good memories. A _mother_. Sometimes she can't help but wonder what having either of those would feel like. How her life might have ended up differently.

"Anything wrong?" he asks, perhaps catching the cloud that crossed her face as he taps his fingers on his knee to the start of _My Girl_.

Rey drops her shoulders. Judge not, right? Sure, he's a giant, all in black, silent stereotype type, but sometimes she's just wrong about a person. Not often.

"Nothing. It's nothing."

The road is finally leveling out now and Rey gets the feeling they're approaching a split or, hopefully, the main highway. Her GPS has been bouncing frantically from one unpaved Forest Access road to another as it tried and failed to catch a reliable signal. By now it seems to have formed the general assessment that they were somewhere a good bit south of Cloudcroft. At a place Rey didn't intend on going. On a road she doesn't remember turning on at all.

"Last night-"

"These hills are part of a larger chain," he interrupts her, "they're called the Sacramento mountains and the eastern side is a lot wetter than the west. That's why they put that observatory to the west so that it has a clearer view. You should go there. You can see the whole Tularosa basin all the way to Las Cruces."

Er, yes, the Stranger had been a bit of a walking encyclopedia so far. He seemed to know the area very well, frequently chiming in through the silence turned Funk with random tidbits about the geology of the area or how various ancient peoples used this land or how now there was some sort of scenic view and astronomy center built up nearby that he had visited a long time ago. Strange, random facts that Rey found she didn't mind so much because it was nice to hear someone else's voice for a change.

Ahead of them a car whips by perpendicularly. The main road, and Rey needs to go right to get back into town and start her working arrangement with that mechanic.

"Do you want me to drop you here?" she asks, turning on her signal. "Or I can take you back into town. You might find a lift at a gas station."

The Stranger frowns. He looks… reluctant. Rey starts to get a deeply weary sense that he might be about to make himself difficult.

"They have scale models of the solar system," he offers. "You can walk around models of the planets. That was my favorite part when I was a kid."

Rey stops at the intersection. A paved road too narrow for a center line stretches out in both directions. The bump bump of her turn signal starts to get on her nerves until she flicks it off.

"I don't have money to-"

"Most of it's free. Not all, but most of it. There's also a walk you can take along the cliffs. You can see everything from there, from White Sands all the way to the Mexican border."

If Rey didn't know better, she would almost think that he's giving her puppy eyes.

And she's always loved astronomy. Everything about it, about the vast universe of infinite possibilities, about totally wanting to be an astronaut when she was a kid. And a free observatory with models of the planets?

"It actually sounds kind of cool," she admits, strumming her fingers on the steering wheel again.

The man nods. "Yeah. _Cool_."

She wonders if he's mocking her, but it kind of seems like he isn't. Maybe he's a weird, oddball sort who isn't the best socially. Pot, meet kettle.

"How far is it?" she asks.

The corner of his mouth twitches.

"'Bout twenty miles."

Half an hour. It's only a little after seven now, thanks to her panicked morning exodus.

"My car needs to be fixed."

She has obligations, as much as she would just love to say screw it all. And him, too. He's also a good reason why they should part ways as soon as possible. Stranger danger. Weirdo. Man in black. All that good stuff.

Her obligation shrugs.

"It's not like your car's going to suck any worse tomorrow."

Rey's eyes widen.

"Tomorrow! I thought you said it was-"

"Or later today. That too. Your piece of junker is still going to be that later."

Rey starts to pout. It's not like what he's saying isn't true, but… damnit, this car is her _home_. It's been her lifeline for the last six months and maybe it's all the time in her own company, but she's started to think of this wreck as her friend. It may be a junker, but it's _her_ junker.

"Alright," the man says after a few more moments of indecision and idling, "how about this? When is the next time you're going to be in Sunspot, New Mexico?"

Realistically? Never.

"And you like astronomy. I saw how your eyes lit up when I started talking about the observatory. _And_ I can help you clean up and pack up your car since it's kind of a mess right now."

He looks over his shoulder at the hastily shoved bundle of tent and pine needles looming in the back seat. Rey twists her face. Maybe she had overreacted this morning. This guy's not so bad. Strange. But okay.

"Just twenty miles down the road, right?"

The Stranger smiles. It's the first time she's seen him smile, and his face looks damned odd. He's kind of cute, in the strangest stranger sort of way, but where the hell did that thought come from and doesn't she want to see the Tularosa Basin and a scale model of the solar system? And whatever White Sands is which sounds kind of awesome?

Yes, in fact, Rey does. Rather a lot. And it certainly beats hanging out with the boozy mechanic and his bitchy daughter in some sweltering garage all day.

Rey flicks on the turn signal to the left and pulls out. The Stranger cycles through the scattered choice of stations until he stumbles across _Nowhere to Run_.

* * *

"We're having hobo stew for breakfast, that works for you?"

It was more like brunch time, and the sun was high enough in the sky that its heat was starting to bake so they'd picked the table with the most shade. After the observatory, which was admittedly a lot of fun if not a little on the smallish side, they had driven along the ridgeline until they got to the picnic area.

Instead of answering, the Stranger peers into the cooking pot at the canned corns and potatoes that are swirling about. He doesn't ask any further questions.

Rey smiles to herself. For a man who literally had not a single belonging to his name, he seems like kind of a prick. What, Soup du Jour isn't good enough for him? Rey should have threatened him with Spam. That might have been fun.

"So?" she asks. "What's your name?"

She probably should have asked that a lot sooner. The Stranger. The Man in Black. The Weirdo. All of those were apt but maybe not the kindest towards a man who seemed half sad, half lost, and a third half something else she couldn't place her finger on.

Said Man of All Names looks up from the can of beans he'd been poking at with a spoon like he'd expected it to bite him.

"You don't remember?"

"You didn't tell me."

"I did. Last night."

Oh. Rey had been so caught up in the unexpected morning and fun of actually having someone to talk to, even if he was a sullen sack, that she had half-deliberately shoved her apparent blackout from last night into the back corners of her mind where they couldn't ruin her day.

"I forgot. I'm sorry. I must have been so tired last night that I completely blanked."

"Kylo."

He offers her the now throughly prodded-at can.

"Kyle. Hmm… okay, well nice to meet you again, Kyle."

She plops the beans in with the rest and her companions eyes widen as the soup turns a very unappealing shade of grey. It will still taste goo- good enough. That's what the onion powder is for.

"Kylo. With an ' _o_ '."

She doesn't remember that at all. You'd think a strange, fussy name like that would ring a bell.

"Oh."

"Yeah, just like that."

Kylo… like a strange, arrogant form of Kyle. Rey would have assumed the Man in Black would be named something like...Ozzy. That would have made more sense. She smiles at him though as a way of apology for her unfair mental assumptions.

And once again she'd almost swear that Kyl-oh, the stranger in black, seemed to brace himself before picking up his spoon.

* * *

"Do you see that truck down there?"

The stranger, Kylo though its going to take her a while to get used to that, had been letting half his perfectly edible-ish hobo stew get cold as he scowls into the distance.

Rey looks in the direction he's pointing. Trees and hills and scrub and a narrow grey stretch of road. And a black shape. It could be a pickup truck, she supposes.

"What about it? It's miles away."

Or at least a good long distance and, besides, who cares? Neither of them should, but maybe it's her mind playing tricks on her or how he's built it up into a not-nothing, but there are some odd vibes coming from that direction. Highly scientifically, of course.

"I saw him yesterday morning, too," he tells her. "Before I met you."

Rey raises an eyebrow. She'd tried to gently prod out of him where he had been and was coming from, but hadn't gotten any further beyond 'heading from east to west'.

"You saw it? _This_ black pickup truck?"

It's distance from them made it smaller than her little finger nail with her hand fully outstretched. Desert mirages were on thing, but this is starting to take heat-induced paranoia to a whole new level.

Kylo glares at the offending dot for a long while, then turns his attention down to his half eaten plate on his lap.

"Maybe it wasn't the same one. It's nothing. Nothing."

Rey's eyebrow remains aloft. Her companion stares glumly at his shoes.

"Your mush is getting cold," she tells him.

He nods. Gravely.

"Yummy."

Only when she picks up a kernel of corn on the tines of her fork and flicks it at his forehead does he stop giving that truck the side-eye and get back to the business of silent mastication. Rey frowns at it, not liking but now knowing why, before returning to her own meal.

* * *

Rey started to feel like something was wrong.

She couldn't name what it was. Couldn't put her finger on it. But something was unsettling her. An instinct that found a voice within her that was telling her the surroundings were off.

The feeling had been simmering there since that afternoon. Since that black truck that made Kyl-oh so skittish, actually.

It made her feel like she was being watched, and that made her desperately want to be alone.

End of the line again. Time for her passenger to go, even though she was kinda maybe starting to take a liking to him.

"How about here?" she says, pointing at a wide, gravel pull off. They'd rejoined Highway 82 and any traffic going through the area would have to drive right by this spot.

When the Stranger doesn't answer she shrugs, puts on her blinker and starts to slow down. He opens and closes his mouth like he's about to say something.

Then, just as she's about to pull in, he grabs the wheel and jerks it to the left. The car practically jumps back onto the road, swerving into the oncoming lane.

"Hey!" she shouts, slamming her foot onto the brakes. "What are you doing?!"

He lets go abruptly, pulling away and recoiling back to his side of the cabin.

"Keep going."

He says it as an order. Like he can command her to do whatever he wants. And they'd been doing so well until this point. She had actually started to really like him and thought maybe she'd misjudged him.

Indignation washes over her, making her sputter for a moment before finding her voice. This is why she hates people. They always turn on her.

"Get out. Now."

She grips the wheel tightly. He doesn't move.

"I said _get_ _out._ "

Rather than answer or leave, the man lifts his hand into the air and spins his fingers around in a slow circle. Rey narrows her eyes.

"What are-"

The beaded wreath hanging down from her rear view mirror is spinning. He's not touching it, but it's spinning just like his hand.

Their eyes meet. Then his hand bounces and so does the wreath.

Rey reaches for it, steadying it. It… pulls. Yanks itself free of her hand. She sweeps her palm under and all around it, searching for whatever transparent string or wire he must have somehow attached to it.

"If you let me stay, I can show you how I'm doing this."

There's a strained tone in his voice and a pained expression behind his eyes.

This is… all too much. Rey needs to get him out of here.

"Get out of my car," she tells him again, trying to keep her voice level and sound more confident than she feels. Not sure how to enforce it or what she can do if he doesn't.

He doesn't move. Of course he doesn't move.

Instead, he frowns at the floor. The hand on his leg opening and clenching.

"Keep driving. Please."

Please. As if that one word would make a difference.

She's about to insist again when she feels an odd twinge in the back of her head. Like an itch running along her scalp. For a moment she almost wants to drop it. Just keep driving to appease him and avoid a conflict.

Then she brushes it away. Steadies her voice.

"No," she repeats, glaring at him sternly. "I want you to get out of my car. _Now_."

He sighs deeply, closing his eyes and letting his shoulders slump. For a second she thinks he's actually going to go, then he mutters "fuck" under his breath, glaring at the road ahead.

Another car is driving down towards them, cresting into sight on the horizon. A black semi-truck, technically. She's still partially sticking out into their lane. It's very far away, but a knot forms in Rey's stomach at the sight of it.

"Keep driving," the Stranger tell her.

Rey's had enough. She turns, unlocking his seatbelt from the mechanism. Then she reaches over him to the door handle, intent on throwing it open and heaving him out somehow. If he puts up a fight, hopefully she can flag the other driver down and get help.

He snatches her wrist from mid-air, squeezing it firmly when she yelps and tries to jerk it back. "Don't do that. Keep driving."

She wants to demand again that he leaves her car. Shout at him to let her go and get the hell away from her. But exactly like yesterday she suddenly feels dizzy. Disconnected from herself with an intense sense of pressure in her mind. She tries to fight it and he squeezes harder, leaning closer and staring at her with focus.

 _Drive_.

When her arm goes slack he lets go of her wrist. It falls limply onto his lap.

She shakes her head. Or at least she tries to, but suddenly she's completely unable to move. Every muscle in her body is locked up tight.

It's him. The Stranger. Somehow he's _controlling_ her.

And it kriffing hurts. Like being buried under a pile of rocks and Rey can feel her energy start to sap away from her. She fights it. Fights it blindly. Scrambles against her invisible shackles until she catches a corner and starts to drag herself out of this mire.

The Stranger inhales sharply. He seems almost shocked that she's resisting him.

"How are you doing this?!"

She can't move. She can barely even speak. The effort to force her voice out through her constricting vocal cords is tremendous, and Rey feels tears begin to streak down her cheeks.

The Man in Black stares at her with wide eyes. His hand stays lifted, floating high in the air between them.

"If I let you go, you have to… hear me out. Don't try to run. Just hear me out. Please."

Rey pulls on herself with all her might. All she can do is grit her teeth and force in a shaky breath. She's frozen to the spot, completely unable to move her body. Parlor tricks and spinning bead wreaths were one thing, this… this was the stuff of nightmares. Literally. Oh gods how Rey hopes this is only a nightmare.

"Rey, _please_. I only want to talk to you. It's going to be okay, I promise."

With that, his hand falls and so does Rey. She collapses down onto herself, slumping in the front seat as her heart thunders in her ears.

When she looks at him, he's a blurry mess through her tear drench eyes.

"This isn't how I wanted to show you this," he says quietly. "I don't want you to be scared of me. I hate it when people are scared of me."

Hesitantly Rey reaches up and swipes her face with her sleeve. She's okay, she thinks. Whatever he did to her didn't hurt her, at least not that she's aware of right now when the adrenaline is pumping liquid fight or flight into her veins.

"What _are_ you?" she asks.

The Stranger sighs. He throws his head back against the headrest and an odd notion of attacking him flickers through her mind. No. useless. She should run instead.

And yet, some part of her wants to stay and find the root of this mystery. Whatever happened-

"Hypnotic suggestion?" she wheezes, her throat still stiff and uncooperative.

The man turns to her again. Rey cringes back as he reaches out to her. His hand recoils, and he dips his head low.

"I have something I need to tell you, Rey, and I need you to try and understand before you react, okay?"

There's a ringing in her ears. A ringing and not much logical thought beyond it. He said her name. She must have told him that before, but it sounds so wrong coming from him right now. Like he knows her more than she knows him.

"What?" she snaps, anger starting to push up to join her fear.

The man clears his throat and fidgets. He had just _assaulted_ her, and now he's acting self-conscious. What in all the hells was any of this?! She watches as he sucks in a deep breath before he speaks again.

"I've been following you for the last few days. I knew you were going to be here on highway 82 because I heard you talk to the attendant at the welcome center. I followed you because… because we were meant to meet."

He doesn't finish his sentence. Rey doesn't breathe until she physically has to.

It doesn't make sense. She's nothing. Nobody. Why would-

"Are you going to kill me?"

Of all the ways she could have said that question, her body chose the manner of almost blasé. Flat and without any of the feeling that she should have in her now. So this is what 'numb with terror' really is like...

Kylo stares at her for so long that tears start to leak out of her eyes again. Her hand flies to the door handle and this time he stops her with his voice instead.

" _Don't_."

She freezes again. This time it only lasts a second before she recovers herself.

"How?" she manages to gasp.

The Stranger slumps again, and this time the urge to strike him sparks to the front of her mind. When he looks at her, however, his face doesn't seem like an enemy.

"We're not, Rey, I can promise you that."

His hands opens and flex. The beaded wreath spins. The doors lock and unlock, causing Rey to stiffen with each loud snap of their mechanism that he's somehow inducing.

"I can show you this, Rey. I can show you all of this. But first, we need to get out of here. We need to keep driving."

It starts to dawn on her that she doesn't have a choice. That she literally, physically doesn't have a choice. That doesn't change her answer, though.

"I'm not going anywhere with you. Get out of my car."

She has no way to enforce that. This… this monster next to her could do anything he wants to her, and she couldn't stop him. There is no worse feeling in the world than that.

"Don't touch me!" she shouts when he picks up her wrist.

She tries to pull away and this time she can feel him doing something to her. An awful creepy, crawly sensation filling her limbs.

"You sense that, don't you?" he asks. "Please believe me, Rey, that we need to get away from here. They're coming for me, coming for _us_ , and we need to get out of here before they do."

His hand leaves her skin and so does the feeling. It's replaced by a sharp wave of more than just fear. When Rey forces herself to look at Kylo, his face seems honest. He almost even smiles as he watches her.

It takes Rey five tries to form her next words. Pieces start to snap together on their own in her mind, connections being made completely without her own will or knowledge.

"Someone is after you," she says carefully.

"Yes."

"And they want to kill you."

" _Y_ _es_."

"And… me?"

Any trace of a smile fades from his lips.

"Yes, Rey, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I dragged you into this. Give me blind faith because that's all I can offer right now. I've followed you because I need you. I need you to come with me and I need your help. But first, I need you to get us out of here _right_ now."

He holds her gaze steadily. Then his eyes flick ahead and he swallows. In front of them, in the distance but getting closer, is that black pickup truck. It had used to be a dark dot the size of a pin open the horizon, but they had been stopped here on the road fighting for so long that it had almost caught up with them.

Rey swallows, a feeling of dread washing over her so sharply that she shudders from head to toe.

"Rey?"

The Stranger, _Kyl_ _o_ , nods at her. He's trying to make it her choice, but she can see his hand open and close by his side. If she says no, something bad will happen. That's the only thing she knows right now, and it comes with a certainty.

Rey puts the car in reverse and Kylo exhales a breath she hadn't realized he'd been holding. He draws his seatbelt across himself as Rey makes a sharp U turn and slams on the gas, racing away from the black shape approaching on the horizon.

The further they get, the further that feeling of blind fear fades. Fades until all that's left is Rey wondering what the hell has she just gotten herself into.

* * *

Author's note:

This has been very roughly edited. I've rewritten in 4 times now and I'm just hitting publish before I change my mind and it becomes 5. I'll tidy it up soon, promise.

So sorry for the HUGE delay. I went on vacation and then *BOOM epic writers block. I had a major crisis of identity with this story but I think it's back on track now. One thing that I think made all the difference with no rest for the wicked was regular updates so I'm striving for that. I think it's clear sailing for the next few chapters at least. I'm trying, I promise!

And this chapter was kind of slow and random and all over the place. Literally I rewrote it 4 times. Like nearly 20k worth of words got scrapped and put together in the making of chapter 2 so pray with me that these dark waters are behind us. Feeling good now, but kark if it wasn't a rough path.

Anyhow, next chapter (maybe!): Kylo's sure got some epic explaining to do to Rey, Rey's got some major doubts, and we leave the plot of the original under skies you could drown in behind as we cross through the first Doorway of No Return! (dum dum de dum…)

* * *

comment replies:

guest- glad you liked it! Why chapter 7 though? Well I hope you check back then and enjoy it anyhow!

Pobrediabla – I'm so glad you liked the original. It REALLY sucks not being able to link to my tumblr here and share my map with you but this site absolutely won't let me (heck, it wont even let me link to THIS story which you're reading right now!). I have the latest map up at ava-dalo there. Anyhow, I hope you liked this chapter and thanks so much for commenting!

shestoolazytologin- Soory for the long delaty, I had issues! But hopefully we're back on track now. This story is going to be a little less… debauched than on ben's knee. Maybe more in line with no rest for the wicked but i'm not sure when or even if they'll do the do. Still, I hope you keep up with it, I've got a lot of big plans for a fun action filled romp!

Thanks as always for commenting!

kyloren'sgirl213- glad you liked it! I hope you keep checking up on this story from now on! Thanks so much for commenting! xoxo

vicca2687- ah, another 'Skies reader! I'm so glad you decided to stick with it until this reboot. I've got a ton of plans and story ideas for this fic so I hope you keep with it and enjoy the ride! Thanks so much for commenting!


	3. Yes, I Am Sequenced

chapter summary:

Where Kylo tells Rey another version of the truth and she doesn't believe a word he's saying until she has a reason to start believing.

* * *

Doubts didn't take long to come back to Rey.

She sped down the highway, racing like hell on wheels away from nothing. A _car_. She was running away from a car that, in all likelihood, was just some vehicle driven by just some person. Another tourist, perhaps.

"I've lost my mind," she mutters.

Her companion doesn't answer. He grips the side door handle white knuckled and somehow Rey can sense him holding himself back.

Great, she's got a real psychopath with her. Like, the genuine item. The kind that can't separate reality from fiction or a black truck from a tourist.

"There should be a road coming up on the right," he tells her.

Rey's foot remains firmly pressed at 70mph.

"Rey, please turn..."

Her foot eases. She tries to slam it down again to be assertive of her rights to exist, but she's unable to. Kylo frowns, two deep lines etching themselves into his forehead between his eyebrows.

His finger flicks through the air, and the car starts to turn to the right before Rey gives in and controls it down the gravel side road herself.

"Are you kidnapping me?!" she yelps. "Is this a kidnapping? Is that's what's going on? Because if you think you can hold me for ransom you're going to find out pretty damn quick that-"

"Your parents are dead or gone and you have some friends but they're broke and I wouldn't be able to get more than beer money off you. Good thing that's not what this is."

He just read her mind. Or, not even read her mind, because Rey hadn't gotten past thinking that, even if her parents _were_ alive out there somewhere, they probably wouldn't help or could even be contacted.

"Pull over somewhere," he tells her. "We're leaving a huge dust trail. If they're really here, they'll be able to follow it."

"If they're _really_ -"

Oh enough is enough. Rey has indulged this lunatic enough in every way.

She pulls into a rocky circular parking lot. There's an old faded sign indicating some sort of nature trail, but Rey ignore it, puts the car in park, and rests her reeling head in her hands.

Last night… she remembers something. She remembers him putting her to bed. Literally. She had been so loopy and out of it when they'd pulled into the campsite that he had literally picked her up and laid her down in her tent. Even tucked her into her sleeping bag like she was a fitful child.

The memory makes Rey grit her teeth and tears prick at the corners of her eyes. _How dare he!_ The sheer audacity of the man, this _stranger-_

Her fingers start to claw into her scalp and the abductor in question shifts, the whole car creaking with his weight.

"Rey-"

"Don't."

She doesn't like it when he says her name. She wants to get away from him. Wants none of this to be real.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asks, voice still muffled.

Does she even want to know? Yes and no. But it would be good to have an idea of what this psychopath has planned so she can better prepare her defense. Or offense.

"You're afraid of me. I hate that. I hate it when people are afraid of me."

Rey turns her head slightly, staring at him from the corner of her eye. It's the second time he's said that today and for the life of her Rey just can't get a clear reading on him.

She breaks first.

"I'm going for a walk," she announces, grabbing both the keys and a large bottle of water.

No part of Rey had expected him to just let her go like that, but he does. She doesn't get far, though. No more than twenty paces before he's right there behind her, shadowing her as she stomps up the rocky trail marked with a faded yellow blaze.

Rey doesn't full on run, but she nearly jogs. Walks at a rapid ace that, regrettably, the Stranger has no trouble keeping up with. It occurs to her as the distance between where she is now and the car grows, that wandering off into the wilderness with her kidnapper-slash-possibly-murderer is only going to make his job easier, but she so badly needs some fresh air and movement to try and get her thoughts together.

At the top of the trail is a little lookout point with a podium and a dais with a sketch of the mountains ranges both near and far. Rey squints at it, feeling her annoyance rise when the Stranger stands to the side and uses his own cast shadow to block out the sun so she can read the placard easier.

"There," he points at the printed outline of a peak very far away. "That's where we need to go. I think."

Her denial is as instantaneous as his 'we' part is inexcusable.

"I'm not going _anywhere_ with you." Rey has to fight to keep her voice calm. Don't poke the crazy bear. Just find a way to get out of here.

"Rey-"

"No."

His shoulders slump. Rey finds herself unconsciously leaning forward a little closer to stay in his shade.

"I told you that I need your help. I know you don't think you owe me anything but-"

"I don't. I absolutely don't."

Not even a ride back into town. She's played his game long enough as it is.

"Listen you weirdo," Rey stands as straight and tall as she can. "I'm about five seconds out from doing something if I don't start getting some damn good answers and I don't know what that something is but it's going to be very loud and you're not going to like it."

In Rey's credit, Kylo visibly pales at her vague and rather nonsensical threat. Here she was, a young woman all alone out in the middle of the desert with a creeping, karking shadowy behemoth. All the odds are stacked against her so far that the only real edge she has left is her incredibly foul mouth and fast wit.

Okay okay," the Stranger raises up his hands, alarm etched tightly along his raised brow. "Don't do anything hasty. Or loud. You want to talk, we'll talk."

Rey didn't have a follow up at the ready, so she tries to chisel her jaw and look anything but scared out of her godsdamn skin.

"Great. Glad to hear it."

Kylo starts to pace, his shadow long and lean and flickering against the rocks and the late afternoon sun.

He seems to start and stop himself several times, and Rey finds herself growing equally fearful and curious.

"Fifteen years ago something happened out in those mountains to the west," he finally says. "I had been there somewhere with my uncle. We were searching for something and we'd come very close to finding it. And then… and then I don't remember what happened next. When I woke up, he was gone and people said that I had killed him, but I know I didn't do it."

Rey blinks.

"I don't understand."

And she doesn't. So many questions, but first and foremost being what the _hells_ does any of this have to do with her? This sounds more like the plot of some fantasy book or maybe paranormal TV drama. Is he just playing with her? He might as well be an actor rehearsing his lines for all the sense or credibility that Rey can give him right now.

"I'm looking for the truth," he tells her as the silence grows. "That's why I'm out here with nothing. That's why I came here looking for _you_. I need to find out what really happened that night."

The wind starts to pick up. Rey doesn't notice at all.

"No, please, listen to me." He steps forward, backing Rey up until the edge of the dais presses against her legs and she hadn't realized that she'd been backing up. "I didn't do it. Any of it. I'm being set up and I need _you_ to help me clear my name. You're the only one who can do it, and we can help each other."

Rey stares at him for a long, long moment. There's nothing…

He believes it. This man standing before her believes every word that he just said. She can feel that he does, see it in the conviction in his eyes and the open plea of his hand slowly reaching out for her.

But what he's saying is ludicrous, point blank.

"No."

"Rey."

She moves to the right, trying to step around him. Kylo steps with her, blocking her escape route.

"What were you doing then?" he asks, matching her move for move. "Fifteen years ago something happened to you on the same day it happened to me. What was it, Rey?"

Rey doesn't have to dig deep to find the memories. Fifteen years a she had been a child and her parents had given her away. Threw her away like she was nothing. She wore the scars of her abandonment every day, even if it's something she deliberately tries to never think of.

" _Yes_." Kylo's voice is quiet under the sound of his boots crunching closer to her. "But you don't remember either. You must have bee very young, but not _that_ young. Do you remember the night they left you?"

Fifteen years. Fifteen years and it was still a gaping open wound. Kylo's shadow fades across the side of her face but she stubbornly refuses to look anywhere but down.

"July." Same month as now. "It was in July on the-"

"Twenty-ninth."

Her eyes flick up and meet his.

"Twenty-ninth. July twenty-ninth."

"Same for me, Rey. That night that I don't remember what had happened changed everything for me, exactly like it had for you."

Rey refuses to believe it. She doesn't even know what 'it' is, beyond this being one big hell of a coincidence. What are the odds, though? One in three hundred and sixty-five? Low odds for sure, but hardly impossible.

"How did you find that out?" Her voice wavers even if she really, really wants it to hold steady. "I don't tell people about that, so how'd you do it? Break into my records or something? Those should have been sealed."

The Stranger sighs, his whole chest rising and falling. Around him the sky is getting darker and cloudier as a later afternoon storm starts to gather.

"That night, before he disappeared, my uncle told me that something very bad was about to happen. That he couldn't stop it but-"

But it was for his own good. Rey doesn't say it, and neither does Kylo. Her parents had told her something like that too, though the exact details of their words are buried under the repressed pain of a mind far too young to understand why she was being discarded.

"Do you know what else he told me?" It's Rey's turn to step closer as Kylo's voice dims. "He told me that I would find you. That some day I would get away from Snoke and he knew I would come looking for the truth and that I couldn't find it alone. That I would meet someone just like me, just like us, along the way."

Half of what he's saying doesn't make sense and that's being generous.

"Get away from what? Is Snoke the name of...er..."

Rey doesn't know how to tactfully say 'prison' because maybe he was a mental patient. Inmate, perhaps?

Kylo steps closer, once again cooling Rey with his shade. "He told me to find you. Not in so many words, he was very prophetical about it sense… well..." an odd smile crosses his face, a soft one with slight wistfulness. "My uncle was that way. He would talk in riddles. That was part of his character, I guess. But he meant it. He said I would one day break away from Snoke and I would need help to find justice. Bring the truth out into the light. And I did, and now here you are."

Maybe Rey took some peyote or something? Is she tripping right now? Is this all a very strange dream or a drug hallucination? If it is, it's kind of a ride. A hell of a thing.

"What's a Snoke?" she asks again.

The smile falls. Kylo's eye drift to the side to the left and Rey can't remember whether left side means you're lying or you're trying to remember.

"Snoke is a ghost. A dark entity. A force of evil. Whatever you want to call him, he's a phantom that's been haunting my family for generations. My uncle had made it his life's work to stop him and those like him. That night fifteen years ago when this all went down we had gotten too close."

Rey's shoulders slump. Now _that's_ some real Hollywood bullshit right there.

"So, you're like a paranormal hunter, is that it?"

She can't help but feel let down. He'd been doing well up until this point, she'd actually started to feel a little swept up and invested in this lost soul's strange tale of woe. Then he went and broke the disbelief by pushing his story too far into La La Land.

Kylo frowns. Rey starts to frown back. Okay, so he was leading her on, but… but maybe he believes his own bullshit? Which brings her right back to the escaped mental patient theory and that one's is among the most alarming of her hypotheses.

"You don't believe me."

"Not as far as I can throw you."

"Not as… that's not at all, Rey. You couldn't even pick me up."

She huffs in an almost laugh. Again he sounds serious. Has he never heard of a sarcastic metaphor before?

Rey takes a step back, giving the ground a quick glance where she can see a sturdy looking head-bopping rock nearby.

"Kylo, Mr. Whateveryournameis, this was really cool story, lots of fun and twists and turns, but now I'm getting sunburned and tired of this shit so how about-"

"I'll show you again. Then maybe you'll believe me."

He reaches out and Rey scurries backwards, leaving her self-defense rock behind.

"Don't touch me!"

Bad things happen when he touches her. His hand falls and he stands still, watching and waiting.

"I only want to show you something, Rey. I'm not going to hurt you."

Yeah, that's what they all say, isn't it?

"Picture a scene in your mind," he tells her, his hand reaching out but not too close this time. "Picture anything you want. I'll tell you what it is."

Rey scoffs. That would be a nice parlor trick, wouldn't it?

But okay, she can play game. Maybe put him back in his place or at least appease the possible psychopath.

She closes her eyes with reluctance. What should she think about? Nothing obvious like her car or the radio or anything that he might have seen and could guess. Definitely not her tent either. Or pine trees or mountains or the observatory or-

A pressure blankets her mind, sort of like a headache but not really.

"Settle on one image, Rey. You're flicking through them too fast. And it hurts when you try to shove them into my head like that. All you have to do is picture it clearly, that's all."

Okay, so she was wasting too much of his sweet time. What's something that he couldn't possibly have-

"Land of Enchantment," Kylo says. "A faded yellow sign with a chili pepper and four- no, five- bullets in it. You'd thought it was funny. It reminded you of an episode of the Simpsons."

Rey's eyes snap open. That had… even if the freak, her stalker, had somehow been there lurking in the distance as she took a selfie at the state border, he couldn't have possibly guessed the last part of that. It's not like she'd said it out loud or anything.

"What..." what are you?

She'd asked him that before and he hadn't answered. Rey reaches out, grabs his hand to hold him in place and firmly pinches his arm.

"Ow!"

Oh. So he _is_ real?

"You're supposed to do that to yourself, Rey. And do you want me to talk about your tent or the roof of your car you'd pictured the top of my head scarping against or how you'd thought it was funny that I'd flickered through twenty stations of static to settle on Marvin Gaye and-"

"Enough!" Rey lets him go, her heart rate spiking again. Drugs? Is this drugs? Or maybe it's too much sun and she's just finally lost her damn mind. "Stop that. Stay out of my head."

The Stranger steps back then, straightening himself and with it the slight ghost of pressure in her mind retracts as well.

"Twenty four hours, Rey. One day. Give me one day to convince you of what you need to know to believe me. That's all I ask."

One day? That's a long time to be out of your mind.

"And after that what happens? If I tell you to fuck off, will you?"

The wind picks up as the Stranger regards her. For a second, just a brief flash of an instant, Rey can't help but think he's not exactly unattractive. But that's a thought she banishes as he nods.

Nods, but doesn't say yes. Doesn't agree to her terms.

"Oh kriff, let's just get back to the car. Maybe I'll try to run you over or something, maybe that will fix the problem."

Without another word Rey turns, scurrying down the path back to where they had parked and trusting fully that her Shadow will remain exactly that: right by her side where she can't get rid of him.

* * *

Fear creeps along her spine, sinking in deep between her shoulders and making adrenaline start to curl through her bloodstream.

What's going on? Why is she more afraid now then when The Man in Black behind her was telling her about ghosts and blackouts and how she's the Chosen One?

"There's someone by my car."

Her voice trembles as she says it, the shock of seeing the vehicle parked next to her own so abrupt it tightens her vocal cords without her realizing it.

Not just someone or some vehicle, but a black pickup truck. It's parked behind hers and sideways, blocking the exit out onto the main road.

Kylo freezes next to her, then he grabs her and yanks them both into the shadow behind a short and scruffy juniper.

"Fuck."

Rey looks up at him. There's that look in his eyes. That same expression of determination meeting panic like he'd had when he'd told- _demanded_ \- that she turn her car around and flee from this very same black truck earlier in the day.

"How did it find us?" he whispers. Rey tucks herself in closer to the snarled trunk and further out of sight.

"It must have followed us."

Kylo shakes his head. Rey swallows as the door to the truck opens. Both doors, actually, the driver and the passenger's side as well.

"Walkers aren't that smart. They can barely think at all, so they must have- _fuck_."

Walkers? _They_?

"What's going-"

"Quiet," Kylo orders. "Stay out of sight. Do not let them see what you look like. They can't know it's you."

Well that sounds karking ominous doesn't it? Still, seems like prudent advice. Rey watches quietly, peeping out just barely enough to see the driver of the truck step out. Except he doesn't so much step out as he sort of lurches. It's a man wearing a cowboy hat and policeman uniform. He's got on mirrored sunglasses and Rey can't tell much else about him from the distance. He starts to walk to her parked car except it's not by any means a normal gate. It's stiff and mechanical, like the man has two wooden legs and a steel rod along his spine.

Kylo grips her shoulder, either holding her in place or perhaps offering his version of comfort to the alarming scene.

"Fuck," he mutters again, this time with more than just an edge of fear in his voice.

The figure on the passenger side is… off. He moves like a reflection, almost shimmering like the distortion of heat on the horizon. Rey can't see the man's face because it's not clear. It keeps moving and changing right before her very eyes.

Rey blinks, shaking her head and trying to make sense of what she's both seeing and not seeing.

"He sent a projection," Kylo whispers so quietly she can barely hear him. Why would he kriffing send a projection?"

Yeah, a ' _projection_ '. That's what that second man looks like. A 3D image of a person but not the real thing.

Projection? Walkers? Bad drugs or bad sun or just plain crazy. Pick and choose which one fits the break in reality the best.

"Okay, I really want to wake up now." Rey pinches herself. Pinches harder. She'd slap herself but that would make too much noise.

Kylo's hand tightens on her shoulder as the policeman lumbers over to the driver's side door of her car and tries to open it. Locked. Rey holds her breath.

Then the sheriff raises his arm into a fist and punches straight through, shattering the glass with his bare hand.

"Hey!" Rey cries out, indignation suddenly overtaking her.

He just broke into her _kriffing_ car! Sheriff or not, that's some karking illegal shit right there!

The sheriff stops fumbling with the inside lock and turns slowly to look at her. Next to him the shadowy figure, the _projection_ , pauses.

Then it starts to race forward, flickering in and out of sight as it covers ground far faster than actually possible.

"Fuck!" Kylo yanks Rey away from the tree, dragging her backwards along with him.

The projection is suddenly nowhere to be seen and the Sheriff is stumbling toward them, slower than they are but shuffling forward with determination.

"Run!" Kylo shouts, nearly pulling her off her feet.

Together they bolt, racing back up the hill away from both her car and the two intruders.

* * *

Author's note:

One day late, damnit… And we're playing around with the timeline of Rey's parents leaving her. Just work with me here on this...

Good twist this chapter? Remember how I said this was going to follow the plot of Under Skies You Could Drown In? Well not so much, apparently. I needed Rey to get really invested in the action way sooner than she did in Skies (where her 'should I stay or go' was one of the weaker plot points that dragged the story down). Okay, so now she's got some real supernatural shit going down that she HAS to deal with. Sorry Rey, can't run away from this!

And the next chapter may or may not be delayed, IDK yet. I think it may be a shorter chase sequence, so hopefully not. I'm nearly finished with On Ben's Knee so that's going to take priority for this week.

Next chapter: Turns out Kylo wasn't as totally full of bullshit as Rey had just assumed he was. There will be a time and a place for Q&A and ch4 is probably not going to be it for our duo!

ps. Cookie for anyone who can guess the musical reference behind the chapter title.

* * *

Comment replies:

Shestoolazytologin- Thanks for your words of support! This chapter was easier and I'm feeling more confident on the direction of the story. Decided to focus on equal parts romance (which we haven't gotten to much yet) and the paranormal elements which came out in ch3 in force! Thanks as always for commenting! (insert symbol of a hear 3 which fanfiction dot net doesn't allow me to do, lol)

Taylor – I'm glad you liked this chapter! It was a real departure from the original but there's going to be a lot of parallels as well. All of my favorite scenes will find their way in, but this time with a hopefully much tighter plot. Thanks for commenting!

Sydkiwi – Ha! Rey was thinking the same things about dumping him by the road, believe me! Little too late now though, isn't it? Thanks so much for commenting!


	4. Boiled Over Into Dust

Chapter summary:

Where Rey has a horrible, no good, very bad day.

* * *

Kylo's hand crushes her wrist as he drags her up the hill.

Rey barely even feels the sting of it. Instinct, pure and raw takes over, commanding her to do nothing, think of nothing, beyond the fundamental need to _run away_.

They dash back up the path, the one marked with the faded stripe, simply because it's the clearest route to get distance between them and the two interlopers. Between the afternoon blast of heat and the incline and the fear Rey is panting and struggling to keep up. The gravel under her feet slip and slides and they work together, her and her big black lurking menace who got her into this situation.

"We..."

Talking is too hard when you're running for you life. We should find a place to hide, we're too visible here. That's what the remaining rational half of Rey's mind had told her. That they're being insane, running from a hallucination because what else could that thing back there really be?

And she screams when invisible claws sink into her shoulders and yank her back, ripping her out of Kylo's grip before slamming her face first into the brick red dirt.

She's winded and then she's scrambling, digging her fingers in to the rocks above her head while something, something _strong_ , starts to drag her back by her ankles. Rey gets her knees under her and donkey kicks back, her foot slamming into the Sheriff's gut and knocking the sunglasses off his face. White eyes, devoid of color and pupils and life, stare back at her. She gapes, frozen momentarily at the morbid sight, and then Kylo lunges back into the scene. He grabs the Sheriff from behind, dragging it off her. Rey scrambles backwards, watching helplessly as they begin to fight. Kylo may be bigger but the Sheriff is apparently much stronger, it's hand wrenching Kylo's away only to punch him hard in the stomach and double him over.

Even from down here Rey can see that there's a bloody stain on the back of the dust covered police uniform. Immediately she's up on her feet, unsteady and terrified out of her mind, and she brings her elbow crashing into the Sheriff's temple.

There's a dull crunch and ricocheting pain shoots up Rey's arm. The Sheriff doesn't make a sound, not even a grunt, but it looks at her with those soulless eyes. She takes a step back, the primal need to run away threatening to overcome her sudden alliance with her kidnapper.

The Sheriff spins, lurching and unsteady but fast, and literally picks Kylo up, holding him above the ground with a hand closed around his throat.

Rey is so useless. So helpless. She turns, looking for a branch or a rock or fuck it maybe even a broken bottle. Anything to arm herself with and all she can hear is Kylo's choked curses and the sound of flesh beating into flesh until the other one, the darker thing that had disappeared when it saw her, grabs her by her face.

It's a _shadow_. A shape. And it's palm presses over her eyes, Rey's punching and flailing arms passing right through the black form of nothingness. Pain bursts through her mind short sharp and over in an instant. Then it's over and all Rey knows is darkness.

* * *

Rey is underwater.

She's being held under water, her head completely submerged and a current slamming against her, knocking her and spinning her over and around and every which way. It's pitch dark without a single beacon of light and something keeps dragging and dragging her deeper below the surface.

Rey wants to scream but she can't or she'll drown. She wants to fight but there's nothing. Just cold and wet and depth and a force pulling her.

No, not pulling her, going through her. It's inside her body, inside her head. Something is riffling through her mind, tearing out one painful memory after another as her body struggles and begins to fail to live through this.

Is this what drowning is like? Is this death? Why is her head being ripped open as water fills her lungs and…

And she was in a desert. This doesn't make sense.

She's not drowning. Suffocating in sand maybe, but not in-

The pain blooming in her head stops as suddenly as it started. The water's gone and she was right, there's sand under her face. Sand all around her and she's buried up to her neck in it. Standing but buried.

 _Hello._

An old man's voice. Something about it is chillingly familiar though Rey is certain she's never heard it before. He sounds almost pleased, and that somehow makes it all the worse She can't see him, though. Can't see anything except black.

Movement around her temples and she thrashes her head from side to side because it's all she can do. The blindfold around her head comes off.

Her guess about the voice was right. There's an older man, a _much_ older man, standing over her. His face is split and deeply scarred, and Rey flinches form him when she realizes that her hands are tied behind her back.

"Where am I?" she whispers.

He shakes his head, his hands returning to her temples. The black fabric is wrapped around her eyes again.

Rey can't move a muscle. Can barely breathe as she's held in place by invisible tethers. Just like with Kylo, she tries to fight it. Tries to fight the hold on her body so she can get free. To somehow to untie herself and then run and run and run. Do whatever it takes to get out of this place.

For a second she sees another man. Older but not so old as the first. He's with a younger version of Kylo and they're walking and talking and she can't hear what-

A pain suddenly stabs through her mind, sharper and crueler than the others before.. She can't even scream, can't fight it at all as thoughts are pulled from her head. It feels exactly like that, as if her brain is being yanked out through a gaping hole in her forehead.

Thoughts. Memories. Everything she's ever wanted to hide from the rest of the world and herself. The man who's attacking her… he's searching. There's something he's looking for.

"Yes," a voice in her head tells her, "show them to me."

Her parents. She sees them for a moment, the only memory she really has of them. It hurts to see them. Physically hurts. The pressure starts to become unbearable but there's nothing she can do to stop the rapid fire blast of images. Moments from her own childhood. Moments of something else. A man falling. No, not falling. _P_ _ushed_. And Kylo standing above him. Then him walking, searching, looking for her. _Finding_ her. Each image bombards her, stabbing deep into her consciousness and building up the agony to the point that, if she could scream, her lungs would be bloody.

And then, a single ray of light pierces through the black pain.

Kylo.

He had told her that it hurts. That it hurts when she 'shoves thoughts into his head'. It's hurting her now, a hurt worse than any pain she's ever known. Rey had done it by accident to him, but now it's the only thing she can do to stop this.

Rey can feel him in mind because he's right there mingled with her own. And she flips it on him. Pushing every random thought. Impulse. Feeling. Oh yes, the feeling. Shoving her own pain right back at him, never slacking the pace of her barrage event hough it feels like it's hitting a hollow wall.

The pressure in her head wavers. It's only for a second, only for a single breath, but Rey catches the edges of the old man's surprise.

And she pulls. Pulls so hard the bindings on her fall away. Sand parts, wet and heavy. No, not sand, _water_.

She's making progress. Rey can feel it happening both ways, how the presence in her mind is pulling her back, but there's something else. Someone else. Just a little more. So close. Just. A. _Little._

Blinding sun and dust in her lungs. Her arms are extended, crossed over her head tightly in an X of protection.

Nothing in her hands. No, sand and rocks and dirt in her hands. And someone is shouting. Cursing. Sounds of fighting.

Rey gasps. Her lungs are absolutely _burning_. She hadn't been breathing before, but now she can't breathe enough. She sucks in precious air, trying and forcing her limbs to unlock themselves.

A substance like black glitter is covering her. That's the first thing Rey notices, and when she almost violently shoves herself to her knees it falls off, melting into the ground like a shadow to the sun.

Blood drips down onto it, a few small bright red droplets mixing with the earth. That's the second thing Rey notices. She has a nosebleed, and doubtlessly countless other wounds in both her body and mind but she couldn't care less because she's _alive_. She's alive and she's back right there in the desert under the merciless blast of the New Mexican sun.

"Rey."

She's only made it to her hands and knees when she collapses again at the sight of Kylo. He's bleeding too, cuts and scratches decorating his face and his shirt is torn. He's limping towards her and behind him is an unmoving shape.

Then she sees the rock in Kylo's hands. It's jagged and coated in something dark and the Sheriff on the ground behind him isn't moving and that's it, that's all Rey can take. Something inside her snaps, her mind reverting back to the dark space she was just trapped within.

She runs. She tries to run. Pure irrational panic fueled by all the adrenaline, all the genuine belief that she had been dying. It makes her legs get up and move even when they're shaking to the point that they can barely hold her.

Rey stumbles. Falls. Doesn't even feel the rocks cut into her palms. She's back up, back running and she knows that Kylo is behind her because she can see his shadow and he's limping. Limping like the policeman he just killed.

"Stop!" he calls out to her, closing the distance even if he's injured.

It has the exact opposite effect. Rey isn't stopping for anything.

She screams when his hand grabs her wrist and tries to pull her back. She twists, kicking and flailing, and if he hadn't let go of her he probably would have popper her arm right out of it's socket.

It doesn't matter. Nothing matter beyond getting away. She lunges again, propelling herself forward only to have Kylo seize her around her waist and pick her kicking feet up off the ground.

"Let me go!" she howls, her voice hurting even her own ears. "You killed him! You fucking killed him you monster!"

She tries to twist. Tries to spin in his iron grip and claw at his face or gouge his eyes or do something to really hurt. To really do some damage.

Kylo holds her all the tighter, crushing her back to his chest and forcing out the next panicked lungful of air.

"I did what I had to do Rey! Now fight this! _Fight_ it!"

Fight? Oh Rey has never fought this hard in her life. Never had to do anything, _anything_ to save herself. Her teeth sink down into the flesh of his arm, her jaw locking and holding him tight until… until…

Until his words start to sink in. Fight this. Not fight him. _This_.

Rey stills, her weight dropping and all the energy leaving her body like hot air. She collapses into his arms, the sudden change in blood pressure making her dizzy and dark spots blooming in front of her for a few hopeless moments.

"Rey."

These emotions, this pure unbridled _terror_ she had been feeling. It's not her. Not her own. It's something else.

The shadow. The projection of the old man that had attacked her. It was still in her mind, compelling her. _Controlling_ her.

Rey feels it. Faintly. A bead in her mind. A spy.

She closes her eyes, grits her teeth, and crushes it into nothing.

" _Rey_."

Her mind is her own again. Her head slumps, her chin dropping as tears to spill down her cheeks and hiccuping coughs shake through her. Kylo sinks down with her, still holding her but not so tightly so that she can suck in air in pained gasps.

"Are you back with me?" he asks.

The hand of one of the arms still hugged around her moves up and down slowly. A stiff form of comfort or perhaps he's simply checking her for bodily harm? After what she's been through, anything is possible.

"Where-" her voice is little more than a wisp and Kylo's arms give her another inch of expansion. "Where is it? Where did it go?"

Kylo tries to stand up, then stops when Rey doesn't move and remains immobile in his arms.

"The projection is gone. It was never here. Just dust and shadow. They can really fuck you up though, especially the first few times."

His voice sounds almost sympathetic, or perhaps relieved. Rey can't tell either way. Can't tell much of anything right now.

Rey hiccups again, her body shaking as she fights back the urge to burst into tears again. This time the feeling of hopelessness is wholly her own, triggered by one of the worst experiences in her life.

"And… and the Sheriff? Is he dead?"

Kylo moves behind her. Shifts her weight that he's still supporting.

"Yes."

Yes, he's dead. Dead. _Dead._

The tears come more freely then. Rey scrunches her eyes closed, trembling and starting to pull at the arms around her again. She doesn't want him touching her. She doesn't want him anywhere near her.

"You killed him. You're a-"

Murderer.

Rey yanks his arm free and stumbles forwards. Stupidly tries to limp away even if her eyes are too blurry to really see. The sun blasts down on her, burning every spot of bare skin. touching.

A hand comes to her shoulder. Wraps itself around her bicep and helps to steady her as she wavers.

"Rey… I need to show you it. You won't believe me otherwise."

Oh no. No no no. The last thing Rey wants is to see the body. See the gods-fucking-damnit _Sheriff_ that he had killed.

Rey whimpers, digging her feet into the ground as Kylo tries to drag her back to the lump. She fights him, but she's exhausted herself completely by this point and there's no reserves of will left in her. Kylo finally gives up with dragging her like a tantrumming child, but he leads her, holding her shoulders tight and giving a push every time she tries to stop and turn away.

The body is there, but she won't look at it. She can see enough. See that there's a dark space missing in the side of the Sheriff's head. She's absolutely not going to look. Some things can never be unseen.

Then Kylo lets her go and she simply stands there, too shell shocked to do any more than barely stay upright.

He kneels by the body and rips open the man's shirt. Rey jolts at the noise, her eyes going wide as she stares blankly into the sky or anywhere else but by her feet.

"Here," Kylo says. "You have to see this. He was already dead. Look."

Rey glances like one glances at the sun. A flick of her eyes there then away.

Then back again, her heart seizing up in shock.

There's a wound in the sheriff's chest. Over his own heart, actually. His skin is a ghostly pale and covered in a streak of blood but it's old blood. The same dark, thick substance coating the rock that had been in Kylo's hands when Rey's fear had taken over.

"He's been stabbed," he tells her. "Stabbed _and_ shot. Probably the bullet was first, and then the stabbing was Hux's handiwork. Happened yesterday, most likely. The older the body gets, he less useful it is to Snoke."

Kylo's words reach her but they make no impact.

"Oh."

That's all Rey has to say, her mind numbing itself to the new endless line of questions her abductor's words bring up.

Kylo stands up then. He reaches out for her, trying to catch her arm and Rey pulls it away. She buries her face in her hands, wishing and begging and pleading to the gods to wake up now. Please.

"Rey," Kylo's voice is unexpectedly soft. "It's okay. It's over. It's all over for now."

For now. Another question. Another statement she doesn't have the function to process at this moment.

"I want to go," her voice tells him. "I want to leave. Get far away from here."

It's an open invitation, but Rey doesn't realize that until later. Kylo wraps his arm around her, guiding her to turn and face toward the parking lot and away from the morbid twice-dead man on the ground.

"Yes," he promises. "Absolutely. But first we need to do something about that. About them both."

The truck and… and the body. Even if the Sheriff was already dead… he's still a dead Sheriff. Only minutes before, when Rey had been out of her mind and thought that Kylo was trying to kill her, she had been cursing the state for being so remote and abandoned and having no one around for miles to hear her screams. Now that's the only thing that's saved them.

"What do we do?" she asks quietly.

Kylo clears his throat, his chest expanding as he takes a deep breath before laying out his plan.

"We have to bury the body. Find a ravine where the ground is soft enough and bury him damned deep. For the truck, we have to get rid of it. Trash it and make it look like it's been stolen and stripped and dumped. It happens more often than you'd think out here, and Hux isn't going to want any trouble with the _real_ police so he's not going to call it in missing."

Rey… nods. Numb. Numb is better than feeling. Anything is better than feeling at the moment, and Kylo's 'plan' is a good as any Rey could come up with herself which, right now, is absolutely nothing.

"Okay," her voice is barely above a whisper. "Let's get to work."

* * *

author's note:

Right… heh… Poor Rey, amiright? This was a darker chapter, but soon we'll get back into the lighter road trip vices of the original. And I'm sorry again for the delay in updating, I've been writing a book! Actually, ironically, the book has certain parallels to this story or at least it started out being inspired but, much like with the original Under Skies You Could Drown In, it's taken a nearly complete 180 departure.

And yes, the finale of On Ben's Knee is coming, just… sooner or later. Can't say, other than I haven't forgotten.

Next chapter:

Where our duo have A LOT on their minds, they try to finally get off this damned mountain, and Rey's shitty car remains still shitty.

PS. for those following me on tumblr, I've just changed my address there to **lost-inthesunlight**! Feel free to stop by and chat or ask me about anything, i have a few pieces of artwork up but mostly I just reblog other people's stuff but I'm always so happy to make new friends there so don't be shy! :D

* * *

comment replies:

pobrediabla - Well it was nonstop action in ch4 but I promise that very soon they're going to have an easier time of it and a chance to get to know each other, we just ahd to get all this binding them together business out of the way first! Thanks so much for commenting!

sydkiwi- Oh I know, I hate cliffhangers too but sometimes you just gotta have them! And it's definitely more than a coincidence about the date that something happened to them both. Thanks again for commenting!

shestoolazytologin - yeah, i wasn't sure what I should call them but walkers seemed right (even though it's also kinda a teeny little detail in The Walking Dead, lol!). And Rey's in deep with problems now, so she and Kylo HAVE to stick together, right? Thanks for commenting! :)


	5. More Than an Inkling

chapter summary:

Where Rey and Kylo do what they need to do then recover and awkwardly be awkward around each other.

* * *

Kylo took care of it.

And by 'it', Rey meant the body. The twice dead _thing_ she couldn't even bear to have in her line of vision without shuddering. Kylo had placed _it_ in the back of the pickup truck and they'd drove off together to find a spot to do some digging. Rey had followed behind him, wondering with every turn in the road if she could and should and would turn around and put the pedal to the metal to get the hell out of there.

She didn't. Maybe she should have.

Kylo lead them to a spot as remote and hard to reach as they could ask for. Storm clouds were gathering in the horizon, and Rey knew from experience they wouldn't hit tonight but the day after. Literally wash away their tracks, if they were lucky.

And the truck had both a shovel and a tarp in the back and there wasn't a soul around to watch the unmistakable actions that had taken place next. Rey had numbed herself with a few aching shots of tequila, but all it offered her was burning pain and no comfort.

Then Kylo took off, leaving Rey to the task of stripping the truck and making it look like a stash-and-trash job. That last part had been her own pathetic attempt at humor based off an old TV show. Kylo hadn't gotten it. He'd simply responded with a grave nod and 'do it, I'm going to go bury this body'.

There wasn't a ten second stretch of the next hour that Rey didn't think about driving off and leaving him. It was so tempting. She had both her car and the keys to the cursed truck. She could leave hims stranded out here, like she should have done all along. It was absolutely the best thing to do. Best for them both.

And also very much the _wrong_ thing.

Rey tore out the truck's ignition first to make the choice for herself. She was committee now. No turning back.

There was an oddly cathartic concord about pulling out a stereo or dismantling a navigation system. Ripping apart a new truck piece by piece, scavenging any little bits of it that maybe she could sell or use or at least make it look like a job well done. Take anything a thief would take and leave a junked out shell.

Something about that…

Rey leans against the propped open hood and nearly shocks herself by carelessly touching a wrench to the live battery. It fizzles and she leaps back, and with that the tightrope of her emotions snaps and she spends the remaining uncounted minutes crying into her knees until Kylo returns.

"Here."

His voice sounds tired. Scratchy with exertion. A grimy bottle of water extends into her bleary view and Rey sniffles and takes it, adding on yet another mental compartmentalization that she's drinking a dead man's water after she just finished dismantling a dead man's car.

"Can you drive?" Kylo asks.

On the way to their spot, _this_ spot, Kylo had driven the truck and Rey had followed him. Judging by the erratic way he would stop and start and swerve from one side of the gravel road to another, Rey would almost guess that he had never driven anything before or at least not well.

She splashes some water over her face and it burns. Kriff, she's gotten so much sun out here she's probably going to be peeling for sure, isn't she?

Her voice gives out on her inhale, but she manages to nod. Kylo hovers to the side of her, watching her with open concern as she gathers up her supply of scavenged goods that she'd wrapped in a blanked and shoves it ungainly into her now overfull trunk. Then she turns to Kylo and immediately looks away again. He's filthy. Covered in dirt. There's still a shovel in his hands and he must catch Rey flinching at it because he tosses it into the bushes before easing himself over into the passenger seat.

"It's getting late," he tells her, pulling out her road atlas and folding it to their current page. "We need to drive a good distance from here. It will probably be dark when we find a site, but just in case there's any trouble..."

He doesn't need to finish that sentence. Dot dot dot. Rey nods, sucking in a breath so deep that her lungs ache, and leaving the wrecked truck and its nightmare of memories literally in their dust.

* * *

It was after midnight by the time they found a campsite.

They had made it down, down, down the mountainside. It had taken a long while, and even longer than it should have because Rey's junker car was still overheating even in the dead of night when there was enough of a nip in the air for her to have to pull Kylo's hoodie tight around her shoulders. Her own clothes were locked up under a pile of stolen debris in the trunk, and Rey had felt nothing short of _driven_ to do exactly that: keep driving, make the distance, get them out of there and never look back.

Camp that night was past mile sixteen of a public access road skirting the edge of the Lincoln National Forest and the start of the Tularosa basin Kylo had told her about so long ago. There were two ways of access, one going in and escape route out the back in case… in case. That and the not exactly raging but steady stream nearby had sealed the deal.

"Do you need some help?" Kylo calls after her as Rey wearily steps out and starts clearing off a spot for her tent.

It's such a loaded question. If he had asked it a few hours ago she might have started crying again. Or screaming. Rey feels like she needs a really good, proper scream pretty soon.

"'Kay," she quietly says instead.

Once her tent is up Rey goes down to the stream to wash up under the moonlight. The skies here span one edge of the horizon to another and there's not a single other light in sight, not even from the distant highway they had driven down before pulling off here.

It's _soothing_. To be so alone out in the great nothingness should be frightening, but oddly it's not. Maybe Rey is depleted of emotions. Maybe all her fear has run dry, washed away with the desert breeze and leaving numb acceptance behind. Still, just the act of getting clean again is making her feel more human than she has all day.

"Let's drink. You have to drink with me. It's the rules."

Kylo had built a fire while she was gone. He'd been pacing back and forth for the last twenty minutes and had all but completely rejected her attempts at making conversation. Not only was it rude, but his lack of interest in speaking to her was really starting to get on her nerves.

And he was still filthy, as a matter of fact. Rey makes a mental note that getting him a second set of clothes was going to be a priority ASAP if they were apparently going to be traveling into parts unknown on his mythic quest.

Or something like that. Whatever. Rey had started nursing the rest of the tequila when they'd pulled in and her thoughts were finally starting to rise along with her BAC.

Kylo gives every appearance of not wanting to get trashed with her tonight, but it's important to her that he does. She's not going to be the only one who drinks herself into a coma. She can't sleep, not after everything, but if he's someone who _can…_

"Dot dot dot, to the third power," she mumbles, waving Kylo to stop his pacing and sit the hell down with her.

She takes another sip of her drink and waits him out. Grimaces at the highly unpleasant flavor. Tequila and diet Sprite. A White Trash Margarita, the guy at the liquor store where she had bought it had called it.

The face that her surprisingly prissy companion makes as he struggles to choke her cocktail down breaks Rey's heavy scowl. She grins at him, feeling her head swim. Kriff, she's such a lightweight. That and she hasn't eaten but food… no. Just no.

"What are we going to do now?" she asks.

Kylo leans forward and pokes at the fire with a stick, turning the coals over before putting on another log. They have enough to stay up all night. Rey doesn't want to even think about what her dreams would be like right now if he weren't here given her albeit sullen company.

"Tomorrow," Kylo flinches at his second gulp and his shoulders shiver before he catches himself. "Tomorrow Alamogordo. We'll get your car looked at. See if we can get a new window from a junkyard. Maybe sell the truck stereo and some of it at a seedy pawn shop if we see one, or maybe we'll just dump them all somewhere. Be safer that way."

Rey isn't really hearing him, but she nods. The fire on her lips is starting to sing in her veins, making her wobble and her thoughts wander.

Kylo starts talking about a new topic. About how they're going to head west. They need to keep a low profile. But there's things along the way. Places he'd like to see again and he hasn't for years.

Rey smiles then, her hands unsteadily pouring herself another drink even as her stomach starts to rise up at the thought of her drinking anymore.

"Are you trying to open yourself up to me?" she asks.

Kylo stops mid sentence and stares at the coffee cup filled with White Trash Special in his hands. The outside of it is chipped and has a cartoon of Betty Boop saluting while saying 'Mission Accomplished!'. It makes him look _ridiculous,_ but in a kinda cute way.

When he looks up Rey's smile widens into a lopsided grin and he frowns.

"You're drunk."

"Very."

She's probably going to have to puke soon. It's better if she does. Maybe she'll feel less like living death tomorrow, black humor pun and all.

"You want to know more about me. You want me to tell you something to fill the silence."

His voice is very quiet, almost hidden under his breath and the snap of twigs combusting into flame. She nods to let him know that she heard him. She isn't sure if he sees the gesture or not, but he clears his throat and pours himself another drink. Pure tequila, this time, no Sprite.

"I used to come here with my family when I was a child. My parents and sometimes my uncle, though I didn't know him well at all until I became a teenager. My parents hated each other, but we still had some good memories back then. It seems fitting that the best and worst happened at the same place."

Rey's smile fades in an instant. He's really… he's going for it, isn't he? And what he just said would be sobering, if such a thing were physically possible.

"Go on," she says quietly.

Kylo gets up and starts to pace, walking back and forth on that now well established track along the flickering edges of the firelight.

"My family is gone now. I wanted to come back here to find the truth because _I don't remember_. And instead I found you. We have something in common. And now… now we have a moment to bind us together. A secret. It's a good thing. Bad situation, but a good result."

Rey thinks about his words. They take their sweet time to sink through her sluggish mind, and Kylo waits and watches silently. Maybe he's right. Maybe, because if that hellscape hadn't happened that afternoon, Rey would be all alone and absolutely terrified. Now she's only morbidly terrified but also curious.

"Gone?" she asks, remembering what he just said about his family. "You mean... they're dead?"

It's not the most tactful thing to say. His brow furrows and he steps even further back, all but disappearing out of sight. She can feel him staring at her, though. She takes another long sip of her drink. Scowls at the taste. It tastes nasty and she's a little embarrassed by her bluntness. Maybe she should have said "passed away" or anything less direct.

"My father is… he died recently. Very recently." Kylo's voice wavers, ending on nearly a choke and Rey knows in her bones there's something he wants to say but isn't.

She isn't sure she can handle it right now. Not tonight.

"You mother? What about her?"

Rey fiddles with the tequila bottle, working the edge of her thumbnail underneath the label and starting to peel it back. She doesn't drink any.

"My mother is alive but out of the picture."

Despite her curiosity, she stops herself from asking anything more. She can feel how the mood is suddenly changing. It hadn't exactly been friendly and upbeat before, but now-

"Have you ever done something really horrible, Rey?"

Kylo comes back to her then. He stands over her, his face hidden in shadows. Rey blinks up at him, seeing him in double.

"What a question to ask me tonight, Stranger."

His head drops. His hand that had been reaching for her does as well. Rey frowns at it, dimly wondering if he was going to do that _thing_ to her mind again.

"Sorry."

He sits opposite from her and Rey leans down on her side against the log she was sitting on. She falls with the movement, her lower half now sprawling along the dirt and pine needles as she rests her head on her palm.

"I'm sorry, too," she says after a long moment of silence.

Kylo raises an eyebrow. He gives her drunken stupor sprawl a slightly condemning expression, but wisely keeps whatever opinions he had to himself.

"Sorry for what?" he asks.

Rey twists the cap on the bottle firmer and pushes it aside.

"For… your dad, I guess. And your mom. That sucks."

The oddest expression flickers across his face as he stands and comes over to her. He kneels, searching her face with his eyes like he's looking for a very specific idea. She furrows her brows at him, confused.

"What is it you really want, Rey?"

She could answer flippantly. If she was sober and herself, she absolutely would answer that like a little brat. But now that she's here, like this in this condition, it brings a sense of honesty to the surface. They just double-killed a Sheriff and she was mentally assaulted by a shadow. If there's ever a time to bare your soul to a handsome stranger, it's now.

"I want to matter," she tells him. "I want my life to mean something to someone."

The words hang in the air so heavily. Kylo looks down at the ground but she's so low to it that she can still see his face clearly. He looks _strained_. Like he's really trying to find the right thing to say. Like he wants to make her feel better. He feels guilty. He brought this down upon her, and he hopes she'll understand. Hopes that he can make her-

"Don't do that."

His voice is soft, but his hand on her shoulder is firm. Immediately Rey's mind clears, the strange tangent she had fallen into dissipating with a nearly audible 'pop' that makes her suck in a breath and shake her head.

Did she just-

"Let's get you to bed," Kylo says.

His hand shifts, dipping under her armpit and trying to lift her up. Rey swats him away, his touch slightly ticklish and the very last thing she wants right now is to be in her tent chasing a sleep she's too afraid will really come for her.

"Do you want to watch something?" she asks meekly, pushing herself to upright. "I have some shows on my phone. They're stupid but stupid sounds pretty good right now."

Kylo makes a noncommittal grunt. He pulls a clump of pine needles from her hair and fiddles with them between his fingers.

"Your phone's in your car?" he asks.

She smiles lopsidedly.

"Either in the little shelf in the dashboard or tucked under the driver's seat. That's where I keep the stuff I don't want stolen.

Kylo nods and stands up. Rey watches him for a moment before calling out and asking for a bottle of water on his way back and her toothbrush.

Then she shuffles off to the bushes to quickly relieve herself. She doesn't puke though, manages to save herself that indignity at least.

"Black Books."

Kylo says the title of one of her favorite shows very much like they were in another language and he was struggling to comprehend the meaning.

"You'll love it. The lead reminds me of you."

Rey mumbles the words around her toothbrush, watching with no small amount of amusement as her enigmatic companion struggles but eventually succeeds with the nuances of pressing the green play arrow and shutting the hell up.

By the time Rey finally passes out they're halfway through season two and the sky is starting to brighten from black to deep slate. The last thing Rey feels before falling under to an affected dreamless sleep is Kylo's chest against her head.

* * *

author's note:

Short chapter but I've decided this is going to be my 'fuck it whatever' story where I do exactly that and just write as much as I feel like. Hope it came out okay though?

Next chapter:

Rey's car is dealt with, Kylo gets his stanky self a little less stanky, and our duo get a little bit closer before hitting their next bend in the road.

* * *

Comment replies:

sydkiwi: glad you like the last chapter! I was worried that it was too dark, especially compared to the original story but I think overall this will be a lighter toned fic, it just had to get off with a bang so to speak! thanks as always for commenting!

shestoolazytolgin: ha! well hopefully this chapter was a little less creepy for you! now our duo are going to be hitting their stride soon and of course there's going to be lots of twists and turns along the way but since the core conflict and adhesion has been set I can give them a little bit of an easier time for now, right? thanks so much for commenting! xoxo


	6. Back to the Top

summary:

Where our duo get off to a rocky morning then hit the tarmac. A trip in town brings more than one feeling of amore, just unfortunately not targeted at the right person at the right time. Then a stroke of coerced luck gives them a badly needed windfall.

* * *

Someone was screaming.

Rey bolted upright so fast she hadn't even realized that she was in her tent and _couldn't_ bolt upright. Instead, she both slammed and flopped her head against the roof, jerking the tent a good few feet off it's groundcloth as she struggled to untangle herself from her mess of bedding.

And the screaming goes on. The sound of it echoing, bouncing around the walls of-

Of her mind. Her own screams from yesterday, playing out in obviously traumatic dreams that Rey is absurdly grateful she can't clearly remember. Half in and half out of her tent and Rey freezes. There's pine needles underneath her fingers. The air is crisp, earthy, and there's no shadow abomination tearing into her thoughts.

Then she hears a man's voice. Kylo's'. A short whimper. A cutoff shout. Muffled through the layers of glass and metal of a car door.

Rey stumbles over to him, needles pricking her bare feet and her gait unsteady as half her mind is still caught up in the webs of her nightmare.

Kylo is tossing and turning in the passenger seat, occasionally crying out and his face is scrunched tight in phantom agony. Apparently he was having a nightmare of his own.

Rey opens the door and hesitates. Then she reaches out and shakes his shoulder.

" _Kylo._ "

His eyes pop open, staring at her and for a second he seems so wild, so frantic that he almost doesn't look human. She takes a step back and his hand lashes out, grabbing her wrist tightly.

The skin to skin contact seems to break the spell. He gasps, pushing himself upright. He's still holding Rey's arm and he half drags her with the movement before letting go.

"I… nothing. It's nothing."

Rey looks awkwardly from side to side, as if the answers could be found more with the trees surrounding them than with the man in front of her.

"You were heaving a bad dream," she says meekly.

Kylo nods, his breath still shaky. He cards his fingers through his hair and Rey takes another step back.

It's early. She hadn't even realized that it was only semi-light when she'd bolted out of bed. It must be around six.

"We can get an early start today," she finally says, "go into town and get some shopping then find a mechanic."

The mechanic Rey was dreading. At the very very it would be extremely expensive. At the very worst… hopeless. It's not like she has any other prospects apparently her inscrutable companion doesn't either.

"Yeah." Kylo's' voice is thin and scratchy from such a rude awakening. "Give me… give me a little. I'll help you with… your stuff. We'll get out of here soon."

Rey wants to ask him about his dream, but then he'd be entitled to ask her about her's. Mutual boundaries and respect. That's what they need right now, not to relieve the moments still vivid in the air between them.

Today will be fine. Better. Just another day like any other. Rey hopes, prays, and begs that today will be a boring routine. She's not sure of how much of anything else she can take right now.

Rey circles around to the back, pulling out a few toiletries and yet another can of food, this time New England Clam Chowder, and gets started to the daily routine. Hopefully the guise of normally will work its magic on them both.

* * *

Later that morning, Rey asks Kylo about Hux.

"You mentioned a name yesterday during… _during_. Hux. Who is that?"

Or perhaps 'what is that' may be more accurate given the nightmarish walkers, stalkers, shadows, reflections, all the strange words that had made up yesterday's trauma.

Kylo gnaws on the top of his knuckles until Rey swats him for being hygienic.

"Hux is someone who used to work at a place where I was being _placed_. He himself is close to useless but… gods, I don't know how to put it to you so you'd understand."

Annoyance pricks at Rey's eyebrow. When he chooses his words so carefully and obliquely it kind of makes her want to hold him down and violently slap the truth out of him.

"Because of my simple little mind?" she asks, keeping her words tightly clipped. "Is that why I wouldn't understand? Kylo, when you start using metaphors liked 'placed' it just really-"

"It was an asylum. I was 'placed' in an asylum. Snoke was the director of the facility and Hux officially one of the overseers there. In truth, he's nothing more than Snoke minion who gets sent out to do the dirty work that Snoke decides needs to be done."

Asylum. Do they still even have those anymore? Rey didn't think so, but she also can sense that he's holding back yet again.

When she looks down between her ten-and-two hands, the needle over her engine temperature is nudging at the three-quarters mark.

"Shit," she mutters, "time to pull over and cool it again."

The good thing about this part of New Mexico is there are no shortage of pulloffs or lonely ranch roads leading out in the great unknown. There's also very few people to ask if they need help because what Rey needs _isn't_ what anyone can give her.

"You know what the bad part of New Mexico is?"

She pulls alongside an old, abandoned barn and into the too-small area of shade it casts. Kylo looks around, pondering the answer to her question. Here in the bottom of the Tularosa basin the landscape is defined by the state of nothingness. Flat sand, occasional blooming creosote trees, and more sand. There were towering, ragged mountains on all sides of them, but Rey had learned the hard way just how deceptive distances really were out here.

"The heat?" Kylo finally answers. "Is it the heat? Or the sun? Or both because they're figuratively connected?"

Rey smiles at his answer, her mood lifting from the morning gloom as they both recover enough to bicker again. Earlier today he had gotten on her for improper use of the word 'literally' in the context 'the sun here is literally making my skin melt into a puddle of flesh goo'. Personally Rey had thought he would object to 'flesh goo' more than anything else, but Kylo has a way of literally surprising her nonstop.

Just to be petty, Rey winds down his window, watching as he figuratively jumps out of his skin edging out of the direct path of sunlight that hits him.

"To get a cross breeze," she tells him, breezily.

He grumbles under his breath, curling closer towards her to get out of the Laser Cannon Death Star in the sky's rays reflect off the metal edge of the door and into the cabin. Rey crinkles her nose slightly, trying to hide her reaction to the fact that yes, he stinks. She stinks. They both stink. He just stinks worse because his clothes are dirty because they're all he has.

"How do you feel about Goodwill?" she asks, trying to make her question sound casual.

Kylo reaches across to the backseat and pulls out a bottle of Generic Brand soda. He regards it in all it's warm, flat goodness before rejecting it and coming back to the front empty handed.

"Goodwill is a charitable organization that provides jobs to a wide variety of people with disabilities of both a physical and mental-"

"Gods, Wikipedia, shut up. I meant the store. The charity shop. How do you feel about buying clothes from there?"

Kylo frowns, then his expression starts to a do a very strange transformation of progression. Each major facial muscle group , starting with his forehead and moving to his clenching jaw, changes from confusion to a position of outright horror.

"You. Are. Not. Serious."

Rey giggles. Checks the time on her phone. It's 10AM. Probably will be closer to noon when they make it to Alamogordo, but definitely the stores will be open. He's not going to get out of it that easily.

"C'mon, you need clothes. We have no money. Like, we're flat-assed broke and need to save the two pennies we can barely press together for gas and car repairs. Goodwill's not _so_ bad."

Kylo juts his jaw forward. He _literally_ looks like a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

"Rey, we are-"

She immediately slaps his thigh with a ninja chopping motion, lashing her hand out lightning quick to interrupt him before he gets to his 'not' part.

"We are! Yay! You just said we are! I'm getting my way!"

She mock claps and Kylo's eyes narrow. When he opens his mouth she raises her hand again in karate-chop readiness.

"Other than today being ninety-nine cents day, which is totally is too, but but do you know what the best part about Goodwill is?"

"Chlamydia?"

Rey giggles. He sounds so serious. Probably _is_ serious so serious.

"Get this," Rey spreads and wiggles her fingers jazz-hands style, "all the clothes are organized by color. You can just go there and go to town and do your thing. Black shirt, black pants, black everything. Heat of the New Mexico desert in head to toe black? Sure, why not? I don't judge. Severely. Go crazy, you're gonna have a great time there."

Kylo gives her a side stink eye. Rey grins so wide her cheeks hurt.

"I figuratively can't wait."

Deadpan. Very deadpan. The dictionary definition of deadpan.

Rey turns the car back on and rolls up his side of the windows first.

* * *

Rey's car problems continued right on schedule.

The engine would overheat. They'd stop. Mourn the loss of the air conditioning for even a few minutes.

Kylo would talk about the area. _Not_ talk about yesterday. Tomorrow they would head west, crossing into higher range of mountains there. The plan, such as it was, was to start working their way into the Gila Wilderness. Apparently that's where the _Incident_ had happened all those years ago. Kylo couldn't give her much more information than that, or perhaps he could but wouldn't.

Truthfully Rey was a little nervous about their upcoming day of in Alamogordo. It was nothing. Shopping. Mechanic. Back to the safety of no one anywhere around them. Kylo had even picked out a likely looking side road off the highway for tonight's campsite.

Still, Rey been deliberately avoiding cities unless she absolutely had to. Not wanting to risk any trouble and preferring just her own company up until very recently.

And then that "absolutely had to" had passed several miles back. Her car had started to overheat and fill with a foul smell and then they'd had to pull over so quickly they nearly got hit by the 18-wheeler barreling down the hill behind them. Instead of asking if they'd needed help, the driver had honked and flipped them off. It was a gesture that made Rey roll her eyes but seemed to deeply infuriate her passenger.

She was very much getting the impression that his temper was a wild and unpredictable thing. It was a liability, but she was able to distract him by putting him to work handing her the few tools that she owned as she made a few adjustments under the hood.

Her impromptu repairs were just enough to get them into town.

Alamogordo is... something.

It's a place that exists. That's what she always tells herself when she pulls into a town like this. And it's definitely the biggest town Rey has been to in a while.

She dropped their car off at the highest-on-Yelp rated mechanic. He was working all alone today and that meant he a major backlog before eh could even see them. It would be a two hour wait. That left that enough time to go and get the essentials. Unstinky clothes take first priority, then back to the mechanic to hear what the damage is.

* * *

Goodwill had been an epic success.

Rey had bought two cute floral summer dresses, a pair of unironic cowboy boots that mostly fit her, and an obnoxiously cheerful yellow t-shirt emblazoned with two palm trees bent over into a heart over 'St. Petersburg, Florida'. Eh… Florida. New Mexico. Close enough. Both places were super sunny so same difference.

Next Rey had gotten a few more essentials like an extra set of sheets and towels before strolling over to the men's section to see how her morose companion was doing.

Kylo had predictably chosen four nearly identical jet black T shirts, two with long sleeves and two with short, and three jet black jeans. Oh, and a jet black denim jacket that Rey didn't say out loud but she inwardly thought he'd look pretty snazzy in.

"Kylo, you did not disappoint. Do you like my new top? I've never been there, but what do you think?"

St. Petersburg is lifted out of the basket and Kylo spends an excessively long stretch of time regarding it.

"It's very yellow," he finally settles on.

He had drawn the line at Goodwill socks and underwear. Rey had assured him they'll get those at the dollar store after the mechanic and yeah sure absolutely, they'll totally be avail be in all black too.

The cashier was an elderly woman probably well into her eighties. She completely ignored Rey in favor of staring at Kylo like he was a twenty dollar steak that she couldn't wait to take her teeth out and swallow whole.

Kylo had been embarrassed. Very. Rey had been pretty amused. Still, they made a quick departure after that just in case the frisky senior citizen got a little too carried away.

"She wrote her phone number on the receipt."

Rey can't stop giggling about that. Kylo hadn't believed her, but apparently he was 'hot stuff'. Almost as hot as the town itself, and they still had some time to kill before returning to their car. This meant the other thing Rey had beens secretly dreading: showing her endlessly prissy companion where the 'best deals in town' really were…

* * *

DollarTree was an epic battle of wills.

Rey had insisted they go and no amount of hemming or hawing or low key whining from Kylo would get him out of this next step in his financial reeducation. There were some basic supplies she needed and "why pay more?".

Kylo had been pissy about it. Told her that she'd probably catch some weird disease from even stepping foot into that store. And besides, that was somebody else's motto, not the 'Tree's as she liked to refer to it.

"Fine, then just stay outside. It's not _that_ hot and you can see your girlfriend at Goodwill right across the road. Who knows, maybe it'll be her break soon and you two can have a real nice chat?

She'd turned on her heel and headed in before she could hear his next objection. They'd been going back and forth over this for several minutes and Rey was getting tired of it. And why was she debating with him? It was her money, after all.

And the store was air conditioned. Even walking the three hundred feet from goodwill here had been a challenge without this lifesaving modern wonder.

She didn't get far without him, though. She had been browsing an aisle of party favors looking for the perfect disco ball ornament to glitz up her dashboard and then-

"Everything here is made in China."

The deep baritone voice coming from behind her is so serious she has to close her eyes to keep from laughing. It almost sounds like he was warning her. Guarding her against the deep, dark secret menace that is imprinted on the bottom of the plastic "stained glass" Thanksgiving Turkey accessory she had been pondering.

"I thought you didn't want to be seen in here?"

"Very true. But I wanted to help."

"That's nice. Afraid I was going to run away again?"

She's only teasing but can immediately tell he's offended. When she looks over her shoulder at him, he almost looks hurt. He hides it immediately, but she's starting to be able to read his enigmatic face and mannerisms.

"Okay, fine," she drops the Turkey into her basket. It will add... character to her already overfull ride. "I've got a list. Help me find all the stuff so we can get out of here before anyone sees you."

Too late for that. Everyone in the surprisingly packed store had been watching them. Some more overtly than others. No doubt they were wondering what the young English girl and her black clad bodyguard are doing in a place like this. She's been wondering that herself more and more each day.

* * *

Now that all the busy domestic business had been taken care of, it was time to hear the prognosis of her future.

They were sitting in the waiting room at the mechanic's. Rey was trying to keep her mind off the endless loop of 'how the hell can I pay for all this and what happens if I can't?'. She did this by reading bizarre housekeeping magazines and filling up on the free popcorn oddly available from a machine.

Kylo mostly just sat there. He'd flipped through the stack of magazines with a look of distaste. Then the look become outright disdain when she'd offered him some of her snack. He hadn't seemed to think that her joke of "this might be all we're eating for a while" was very funny. She hadn't quite had the heart to tell him it wasn't completely a joke; he'd been looking grim enough without her attempts at humor.

* * *

The mechanic was a lean man who looked to be in his early forties and had rather shamelessly flirted with Rey while Kylo seemed incredibly uncomfortable. It had made a brief but amusing flip side and Rey had flirted right back. Mostly in the hopes of getting a better deal, but also out of intrigue over his strong California surfer accent. Rey was sure there was a story attached with how he came to be out here, but after he'd given her the estimate she couldn't be bothered to try and chat him up anymore.

The cost of the repairs would be much more than her car was worth. The mechanic had told her, in his roundabout and rolling sort of way, that her car was basically a heap of junk and it's only real value was as scrap metal.

Rey had tried to take the news well. She'd nodded politely, remaining stone-faced as he offered to buy it off her hands for $500. The cost of the replacing engine would be more than four times that.

When she'd asked how much longer he thought she could drive it, he'd told her it was a miracle it hadn't caught on fire by the side of the road yet. She'd excused herself to 'think it over', which really meant her prideful way of going to the women's room and trying not to start sobbing.

It wasn't about the car. Okay, it was sort of about the car. She'd grown attached to the clunky, funky smelling old thing. It had been her home for nearly the last half year. Homes come and go, she knows that. But damnit, she had liked this one..

And now here she was: basically stranded in a dusty, windswept town in the middle of the goddamn New Mexican desert. It wasn't like she could just go back home. Oh no, not anymore. Her visa had expired months ago. She probably wouldn't even make it out of a regional airport before getting detained.

She'd thought about calling Finn and Poe. They might bail her out. Wire her money and she could put up with their lecture.

But they'd been one of her biggest critics after being her biggest supporter. Once she'd started drifting, just like they'd encouraged her to, they'd become very negative. Constantly telling her to just come back. They had meant well, but...

No. That wasn't really an option. Unless it was a total emergency. Which this wasn't quite yet.

In another world, a Kylo and madness free world, she would have thought about staying here for a few weeks. Trying to find some under the table job, maybe even right here at this very mechanic. Except now that wasn't an option. Now she was the Chosen One. The other half to Kylo's 'too crazy to believed but she'd seen it with her own eyes' fairytale.

That didn't leave her with any other options. They'd drive out of here, fire hazard hunk of junk and all, and just hope for the best. What else could they really do?

With that thought in mind, Rey splashed water on her face and composed herself. Made sure her eyes were dry and redness free before stepping out of the bathroom she'd been in a suspiciously long time.

Except the waiting room had no one in it. No sign of the mechanic or her soon to be ex companion. The front desk and back office were also empty when she checked them.

She was about to step outside and look around the adjacent work area when an old impulse overcame her. She opened up her duffel bag that she was using as a purse, and dumped in as many pouches of the free popcorn as she could get away with. She'd meant it as a joke earlier but now it actually was looking like she was going to need them.

As always, the heat had come as a shock when she'd stepped out of the air-conditioned cocoon of the building. Refracted and amplified by the pavement and hard concrete surfaces around her, and it momentarily took her breath away.

Then she'd seen them. Kylo and the mechanic. They were standing by her car, the reed-thin older man completely dwarfed by her companion's massive form.

She'd taken a few steps towards them, shielding her eyes from the harsh sun with her hand. When she'd gotten closer it occurred to her that something was a little strange about how they were placed. The mechanic was leaning with his shoulder propped against the support ridge over the door frame. Kylo was... holding his hand. As if they'd been shaking on something and then had forgot to let go.

"Hey?" she calls out.

The mechanic doesn't respond but Kylo turns his head and looks at her. A very strange expression is on his face. He almost seems pleased, but he hides it quickly.

"Is he okay?" she asks when she gets to them them.

The mechanic wavers slightly then stands up. Blinks at her with an expression of incomprehension. He definitely doesn't look okay.

"Oh he's fine. We were just talking and the heat got to him, isn't that right?" Kylo pats him on the shoulder and starts leading him away and back to the office.

The man doesn't answer but nods in agreement. Rey hesitates then grabs a bottle of water from her car. Follows them and watches as the mechanic wavers on his feet.

It's the thing, isn't it? That thing that Kylo did to her? Now that she's seeing it from the outside, it makes perfect sense. The mechanic is wobbly. Uncertain. _Confused_.

If Rey was a better person, she would have tried to stop this. She was a good person, she really was, but she was also desperate. The best she can offer him now is some water and he starts coming back together, his head lolling from side to side as he begins to recover from Kylo's _influence_.

"I've made us a deal," Kylo abruptly says.

Rey had been trying to get the mechanic to drink a little more water but she stops to look up at him.

"Oh gods, what did you do?"

"We're going to trade in your car. He had another one he was trying to sell and he'll take it as a trade."

She blinks a few times. This is… unethical. And exactly what they needed. Kriff...

"What's wrong with it?" she asks,

The slight hint of a smirk on Kylo's lips immediately falls. "What do you mean?"

Rey pulls way from the mechanic. He tries to stand up then immediately falls back down into his chair.

"I mean, if he traded it for my car, it has to be a piece of crap, right?"

The emphasis was intentional. It's not that she's not grateful for Kylo doing this but... he could have asked first. Asked her if it was okay for him to give away one of her very few possessions. Even for a good cause. Even if they needed it so, so badly. He just keeps on assuming for her. It's very annoying and close to insulting.

"I think it's fine," he says defensively. "I mean, it's an older model and all. But he said it was in good condition. Right?"

The mechanics head immediately straightens. It's such a fast and abrupt move that Rey almost drops the bottle of water she was still holding.

"That's right," he agrees. "Nothing major wrong with it. Few things, but nothing too serious. It's even a four wheel drive."

"He wanted to give us a good deal. I told him how you're visiting our country and he wanted to help us out. Make sure you leave with a good impression."

Rey frowns at him. Gives him her sternest 'on your karma be it' glare. Kylo swallows and looks down.

"Kylo-"

"It's ours, Rey. I asked him for ti and he's giving it to us. We just have to sign the paperwork."

This doesn't settle well with her conscience. The rest of her mind is equally torn.

"Are you really sure?"

She asks the mechanic directly. He seems to be feeling better.

"Oh yeah, it's no problem. Just like what your friend said. I want to help."

He stands up and heads over to his office. Kylo follows closely behind him, leaving a somewhat bewildered Rey watching them go.

"It's the gray SUV next to our car," he calls out over his shoulder. "You go transfer our luggage into it and I'll finish up in here."

Our car. Our luggage.

Double assumptions said so carelessly. Rey wants to protest. But she doesn't.

Instead she hurries outside, back into the steadily rising mercury of the desert flatlands. It's better if they just grab her new ride and get the hell out of there before the mechanic changes his mind about the whole thing.

* * *

author's note:

A mix of old and new today. I really liked the Dollar Tree bit from before, so that and the ghost town are definitely going to make an appearance in this reboot (spoilers to new readers: there's totally a ghost town!)

And today was an easier and better day for our duo. They needed a break from what had just happened the day before, but don't think that both of them having a nightmare at the same time was simply random coincidence…

And today's map can be found right HERE.

You can also find me there on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight :)

next chapter:

Our duo cover some ground in their new ride, get to know the landscape a little better, and Kylo even shocks the world by offering some real answers to real questions.


	7. end of story notes

Hi everyone!

I've decided that it's time to formally end this story. I haven't updated in nearly 9 months and I don't like having unresolved fics just laying around. This one in particular was rather close to my heart and it bothered me every time I see it incomplete on my story dashboard, So, yup, time to close the book!

This story had a number of serious things going wrong with it. Looking back I can see the mistakes I made and how uneven it was. I think there was a good premise in here, but the actual story itself wasn't very good, unfortunately. Sometimes that happens, though. I used to have a Rogue One fic I took down but before I did I made it also to ch5 that suffered from the same problem: good ideas, bad execution on my part. Live and learn though, right? I think that, now that I've studied the mistakes I made, hopefully my writing will come out stronger and more streamlined in the future.

Just like with Save Me From Myself, I'm going to close this story off in the best way I can. Here are my notes and outline bullet points and some annotations of what I had planned for this fic.

STORY NOTES

I haven't looked at my outlines and notes for this story in at least 8 months, so a lot of this may be news to me too! What I had planned was a huge, expansive 3 part series of around 150k words told over 3 novels of 50k each. Why 50k? That's the standard length of a shorter commercial novel. 50K gives you enough room to tell a good, full story that has all of the major beats. I absolutely swear by James Scott Bell's SuperStructure which contains 14 beats ranging from The Disturbance (the action that triggers the first event the character has to deal with) to the Final Battle and Transformation (the conclusion of the action, the capping off of the character arc). With Stranger to Blue Waters I had TWO outlines, the master outline with these 14 beats spread across the 3 books, and each book getting its own 14 beat narrative. (If you've ever read On Ben's Knee, this was pure SuperStructure plotting and right at the 50k mark, when it works, it works well). In my upcoming plot outline I also heavily mention 'Romancing the Beat' by Gwen Hayes (an author who figureliterally wrote the book on modern romance structure) as well as the good ol' classic Heroes Journey.

Now, one unfortunate thing about this is that I have lost a good number of my notes. I think they MAY be in my other house but that's on a different continent so let's just try and work with what I have! Pretty large swathes of this story I've forgotten, so I'm just going to give you my notes as I have them now:

General plot: (basically exactly as I wrote them, some of this doesn't make sense to me anymore)

In the distant past Luke had been investigating Snoke. Ben had been used as a strategic bait, but he was only meant to draw Snoke out of hiding and not become a pawn in Snoke's agenda. Then, on that night 10+ years ago, it all came crashing down. Snoke triggered Ben's powers, causing a massive and devastating fire. During this fire Han dies and Ben is blamed. Snoke then stripped out all memory of what really happened from Ben's mind, instead implanting in his own false memories instead. At this time Luke also disappeared, making it very easy for Snoke to convince a now brain damaged Ben that Luke was the one behind this all along. Ben was blames for this but, because of Leia's political connections, he was placed in an asylum instead of prison. Leia didn't realize that Ben's new psychologist was, of course, really Snoke.

(my next set of notes are rather incoherent at this point, this is what I think I meant):

Fast forward to 10 years later (now present time) and now-Kylo is a highly powerful pawn piece that Snoke controls through manipulation and psychological mastery. A trigger event (Rey's arrival into the country) causes Ben to have (some sort of revelation). He comes to believe that Snoke killed Luke. Kylo begins to have a complete change of heart since everything he thought was true had just been turned upside down. He goes behind Snoke's back and finds out information of Luke's last known coordinates.

"He wants to untangle the truth of his father's death and his uncle's disappearance" (direct quote from notes)

Kylo escapes from the asylum. He finds out (unclear if I meant before or after he escapes) that Rey exists. She's tied closely to those events 10 years ago, but he's not sure exactly how. He learns that she's going to be Snoke's next target, replacing Kylo's role. First his next pawn and then his next victim. Using their bond (which was formed during that night 10 years ago), he is lead right to Rey and also right in the direction where he believes Luke was buried.

(end of the backstory)

STORYARC and CHARACTER ARCs

Strangers was supposed to be an intensely character-centric story. This was my first time trying a character-driven plot (as opposed to an event based plot) and I think right there was the crux of my problems with it.

The character goals were important. Both Rey and Kylo had internal and external goals. Their external ones were what they told themselves they wanted, the internal was what was really driving them. For Rey, her internal was to find her place in the world and somewhere she could call home. That was too raw for her to admit, though, so her external was to have the adventure of a lifetime and lose herself in the desert hills.

Kylo's character arc was a strange one. His internal goal is to have someone all to himself that doesn't hate or fear him (yep, I went there). His external that he admits to himself was to clear his name and seek vengeance against Snoke while unraveling the mysteries that lead to his imprisonment. Oh yes, and he had some crazy mama's boy issues (pretty canon, right?)

The ROMANCE story arc? Attraction, affection, caution, flight, reunion, acceptance. (these are the fundamental steps of the majority of romance books).

Rey's transformation: she goes from being a naive child in her heart to a woman who's strong enough to believe in herself and willing to fight for love. She won't let Kylo abandon her.(At some point when Kylo tries to pull away) she won't let him pull back from her. She'll pursue him to save him even if it means putting herself at great risk.

Kylo transforms from a man in mourning over what could have been and believing he doesn't deserve happiness because of what he is TO someone who sees the future as a place of more than just absolute bleakness. He finally becomes willing to let himself have a family even if they could be taken away from him at any moment (this willingness is the direct opposite of having abandoned all hope, it shows that he has changed from absolute zero to thinking that change and hope are really possibilities for him).

Hmmm… okay, well those were my character goals. Take them for what you will.

Let's go onto the bullet point outlines. This is how I typically plot my stories, though books 2 and 3 were just rough footnotes since I had expected a lot of things to grow and change with this story as I wrote it. These are also more or less exactly as I had written them:

 **BOOK 1**

Chapter 1 (I'm including the chapter's I've already written since… oh why the hell not, right?)

 *** (indicates structure notes) hero in his ordinary world, disturbance, introduce H1, H2 (heroine 1, heroine 2), 'meet cute'**

Rey is alone in NM, feeling those gorgeous desert vibes

first sighting of Kylo

Kylo not acting like a hitchhiker

car problems, old beater car

Kylo mind controlls Rey 1

Chapter 2

 ***care package, no way 1**

Snoke in Rey's dreams

Rey tries to flee from Kylo

Rey sees a hint of the Force in action

Kylo hates that Rey is so afraid of him

Rey asks Kylo what he wants (to have someone to talk to, Rey is speechless)

Kylo is dressed inappropriately for a hitchhiker

 _ **Care Package**_ _(the thing that grounds a character and gives them depth and keeps them from being generally selfish fucks)*_

Rey is concerned about bringing others into her car and legal problems, even Kylo though he's a creepy weirdo

Argument Against Transformation (I'm not going to explain all of these, but this is the point when the hero(ine) thinks about rejecting the call to adventure)

Kylo and Rey argue about him leaving, possibly sees/signals police and Hux (direct quote, not totally sure what I meant by this)

Kylo mind controls Rey 2

 **Q factor hint 1 (SuperStructure beat hinting at how the final villain will ultimately be defeated)**

Rey realizes that Kylo is mind controlling her

Kylo is shocked when Rey resists him

Kylo is paranoid about Hux (note taken out of sequence?)

Kylo hints at their fated destiny

Kylo asks Rey if she believes in fate

Kylo tries to be super nice to Rey, Rey wonders WTF has she gotten herself into

Chapter 3

 **adhesion, the call, argument against transformation (I think this one was the AAT for the whole trilogy while ch2's was just for book 1?)**

 **adhesion** (why the 2 characters can't just go away from each other)

Snoke appears in Rey's dreams again

Kylo disappears, hinting at paranormal elements

Rey goes through Kylo's belongings, finds Hux's phone number

Kylo tells Rey about their shared destiny (not sure what I meant here?)

1st shared attraction (this IS a romance, after all)

 **Trouble Brewing**

police encounter 1

Kylo asks Rey what she truly wants

Rey and Kylo debate about destiny vs. choosing your own path through life

"go west young girl" (the theme of the first book!)

Rey hears of Snoke for the first time

Rey hears of the talisman that will defeat Snoke (I believe this talisman was actually Luke? Fuck me, I don't remember and I don't have that note anymore, sorry!)

Kylo blunders with his powers in public, Rey comes to his defense (signaling a subtle start of change within her)

Kylo shows Rey a display of the power of the Force

Chapter 5

 **Doorway One**

Rey decides to stick with Kylo and "find her destiny"

 **answering the call** (were my notes out of order here? Because I would NEVER have doorway 1 at the start of a chapter. I dunno…)

 **kick in the shins (a prompt into action)**

Kylo and Rey share a nightmare about Snoke

Rey sees proof of what could happen if they lose (stakes are being established)

pretty landscape moment (I. Fucking. Love. The. Desert.)

Kylo and Rey start to get closer

Rey wonders how much Kylo is lying (he's not lying per se, but he's sure keeping a hell of a lot from her at this point)

encounter with Hux (umm… I guess I swapped Hux out with the undead Sheriff? My notes are progressively making less and less sense to me :(

Kylo: "have you ever done something unforgivable?" Rey: O.O

(beginning of understanding)

Dollar Tree scene (OKAY, yes, confirmed, these notes are out of sequence, I'm just going to keep going transcribing them to you as I have them though!)

Rey's fear of police

Rey feels protective of Kylo

Rey and Kylo get a new car

Chapter 5 (notes start getting shorter now)

 ***tools and challenges, Q factor hint, the MMM (magic middle moment, I've talked about this before but this is a crucial moment of inner reflection that happens right smack dab at the 50% mark)**

cheap motel scene (from Under Skies You Could Drown In, which was an early now also defunct story Strangers was roughly based on)

police conflict

Rey discovers she has the Force (the MMM)

cliffhanger of Rey calling Hux with the number she found

Chapter 7

 **Q factor hint 2**

Kylo teaches Rey the ways of the Force

Rey's attraction grows

Rey hears of Luke and Leia

Chapter 8

 **trouble brewing**

Rey confronts Kylo about his earlier mind control

Hux and Rey talk on the phone

Rey find out her Kylo is Ben Solo, son of Senator Organa-Solo

problems with Rey's expired visa

Kylo gets them into more trouble by confronting local police hassling Rey

Rey's protect attachment to Kylo shows itself

chapter 9

 **no way 2, pet the dog (again SuperStructure, a selfless moment for a character)**

fluff chapter to give a much needed break

Kylo pervs like a voyeur on Rey

Rey and Kylo sleep cuddle

encounter with Hux

Chapter 10

 **doorway 2**

Rey worries about her future and how hard she's falling for Kylo

Rey secretly arranges to meet Hux

the watchtower (from Skies) and their first kiss

Chapter 11

 **mounting forces**

major police conflict

Rey uses her new force powers to mind control an officer trying to arrest her (Rey's full force awakening)

 **lights out**

Hux demands Rey come meet him in person, she slips away to go see him

Chapter 12

 **final battle**

 **(also DOOR ONE of the trillogy, how about that?)**

Face to face meeting with Hux

Hux says Kylo killed Han and Luke, offers compelling proof

Hux claims Kylo is trying to kill her too

big revelation moment

 **q factor**

Rey flees from Hux, police

confrontation with Kylo

Kylo confesses to what he thinks is the truth (it isn't)

 **transformation**

Rey chooses to stay with Kylo despite what just happened

BOOK 2

(this and book 3 weren't organized into chapters, just rougher story beats)

 **the tutor**

Rey goes behind Kylo's back to contact Leia

 **kick in the shins, deepening desire, inkling of doubt** (clearly many of these are beats for the trilogy as a whole)

Rey wonders about their future

police conflict 3

 **allies and opponents, Q factor hint, maybe this could work?**

Fluff chapter 3

Snoke in Rey's dreams again

Rey and Kylo find out where Luke's "body" is buried

sexy bathing scene (sorry I missed out on writing that!)

 **The MMM** **midpoint of love**

Gila Mountains love story

first sex

 **pet the dog**

Hux encounter

Rey protects Kylo for a change

 **deepening doubt, doorway 2, retreat beat, shield's up**

Rey thinks she's pregnant and runs away

Rey disappareas to confront Snoke (cliffhanger of book 2)

BOOK 3

 **mounting forces**

MAJOR police confrontation

Hux plays his ace card

 **talisman, Q factor in action, wake up**

Rey finds Luke

 **final test, final battle, grand gesture**

Hux betrays Snoke to gain greater power for himself (yep)

truth of Han's death resolved

 **return, transformation, what whole hearted looks like, epilogue**

Kylo and Rey return to Leia just as their troubles boil over

she helps them fake their own deaths and they run away together to across the Mexican border

and… the end.

My notes stop at this point. I know I must have had more because they don't match what I'd written too closely. Sort of, but also not really. Maybe these were an older set?

Anyhow that's what I had written as I had written it. The titles of the books were going to be

Book 1: Stranger to Blue Waters

Book 2: One the Run (and Above the Law)

Book 3: Under Skies You Could Drown In

I'm really, really sorry that this recap isn't nearly as helpful as I wanted it to be. With Save Me From Myself I had a much tighter storyline to offer you, here I just had an increasingly rambling an incoherent set of bullet points. Maybe someone here enjoyed reading them? I really hope so.

It's with a heavy heart I close off this story. Looking back I really was trying to go in too many directions, I think that was my problem. This story was terribly unpopular, it got just a small fraction of the views that I normally get, and with that I lost my motivation to keep going. Not that it would have saved me from failing under the scope of this, however.

I think, also, another problem is that most people probably don't like the desert homage setting as much as I do. I love the desert. Love it love it love. And I'm going to keep writing desert stories, but maybe I'll stick to shorter pieces and 1-shots?

Will I ever take this back up? Well, Strangers was try 2 with Under Skies You Could Drown in being try 1. I'm not up for a try 3 now, I've moved on from this concept, but I'm not going to say 'never' definitively. I think if I DO revisit this core concept it will be something dramatically different like a Bonnie and Clyde setting or maybe a desert survival after a paranormal plane crash maybe? Like Lost set out in the wilds of the New Mexican Desert? I don't know, just some brainstorming.

Hopefully these will give some much needed closure. If anyone has any more questions or feedback, feel free to comment /message or ask me on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight or on twitter at Ava_Avdal. I'd absolutely love to hear from anyone who enjoyed this story, flawed though it may have been!

So again a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to read the original story and this rather dreadful recap of it. Now I think I can finally put this story to rest. I hope you all will continue to give my writing a chance. I've learned a lot since I first started this (the original Under Skies You Could Drown in was my 4th fanfic ever and now I've written a total of over 50!). Sorry this non-update was kind of a downer, but I've got lots of good ideas and two major WIPs going on now so I hope you'll check them out when you get the chance! Thank you all very much! XOXO


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